yep, according to my calculations oxford, ms was the next stop on our route of the south. we were slotted to play at a place called the red star bar. for some reason i didn’t shoot too many photos the day of the show but i can’t quite remember why. we set off to mississippi and eventually found ourself in a great deal of traffic with people uncomfortable and full of pee

my reaction to the traffic

we eventually stopped at some point at the king of burgers somewhere. i can’t even remember what state it was

i guess we were near rt 412?

on the way to oxford there were tons of two lane highways we got on. rolling, two lane highways.

at some point it started to rain and shit can it rain in the south. the weather just springs out and shows its face. can you see the size of those rain drops? i did my best to capture the sheer magnitude of the things

these photos still don’t do it justice

oh so everywhere in mississippi is covered by this beautiful vine called kudzu (sp?) i was informed that although it looks beautiful it is a complete nuisance to the natives. it springs up and covers literally everything. but it makes for some really marvelous views

we got off the highway and ended up in some sort of ghost town where old college buildings that once appeared to be thriving were just abandoned. they even built the new buildings directly next to the old beautiful ones

we eventually landed in the square of oxford. my first thought was that its not the biggest town in the world. there is just sort of a square with a courthouse in the middle and that is about it. nothing much else. people in oxford seem to like to eat and read because there was only bars, restaurants and book stores

they had cool old phone booths (obviously)

we got to the venue, which was closed, and noticed a flier for our show that night. that ruled. its cool when people seem to care about the show when you get into a town

we walked around a bit and found a bar to watch lebron’s announcement. we were hoping he’d choose the knicks but had no luck

after eating a descent slice of jalepeno pizza we entered the venue for sound checks. this turned out to be the best sounding place we played on tour. the promoter, dent may, really hooked us up. we had a cooler of beers (who cares) and an awesome stage to play on. i didn’t shoot any shots of girlfriends with my camera that night because it was the first night i remembered to take jenny’s camera and use it. here’s one of the shots that i found on her tumblr (which is incredibly entertaining, btw)

after the show we followed dent through what seems like 10 miles of dark forest and eventually reached his amazing barn-like house. we had a few couches and a few strips of carpeted floor to crash on

his house that he shared with a few other dudes was filled with fun stuff like a giant poster of andy warhol, a movie poster for wild style and assorted portraits and knick knacks

also this massive fly was left where it was flatted on the window. i stared at it when i woke up for a while. hey guy, how’s it going

the rain rolled in and out again but we missed it for the minute. i found myself trying to photograph dent’s place and saw jenny was out there doing the same. look at the ominous edge of the sky in the distance

after packing up we went back into town to meet dent and his co-worker pal at a real southern comfort food spot called tallulah’s kitchen. the food was pretty phenomenal but the portions were massive. i couldn’t finish my black bean chipotle burger at all. the others got catfish steaks and fried oreos. woah. i missed the fried oreos but made up for it this past week on the jersey shore. anyway

it was here that dent’s friend (who’s name slips my mind) told me that in town someone started selling a variety of jam made from that stuff kudzu i mentioned earlier. he said it sort of has a minty flavor… who knew!

when we got back to the square i ducked off for some ice cream with the girlfriends. the heat was wearing me down. i took this same photo with my camera but the scan had so much dust on it i decided to use the version i took with jenny’s camera. the coke float i had was so tasty. i wish i was drinking it right now… old thymey coke bottle… mmm

when i walked back to off square books, the place dent worked at, i narrowly missed the rain which came down in torrents. i think pat was unfortunately stuck in it

the book store was really cool, it had all sorts of cool titles and authors as well as recordings and treats. the night prior i wandered into it alone not knowing it’s connection to our promoter and bought steven martin’s born standing up for only six dollars! good read btw

we waited for the rain to dry off a bit and pet the local book store cat. nick and that cat became the best of friends.

the girlfriends were gonna wait a little longer in oxford but i think we wanted to see what our next stop, jackson, was about

we thanked dent and parted ways. he is a great dude, look him up if you’re ever in the city of oxford

off to jackson, the next stop.

so if you rewind back a bit from the last few tour date entries you’ll notice that i started off my tour with my sister’s wedding. we left from long island with the tour van as mentioned and headed to dc. straight off the bat i will say the whole experience was pretty stressful. just the fact my sister had this massive day planned with so many of our relatives invited (so many of whom have not seen each other in over 15 years) was weighing on me a bit. i know i wasn’t the one even getting married, but i couldn’t help but feel the pressure. though in the end everything went off without a hitch, or whatever that expression is.

we made it to the hotel on time to get ready to go to the rehearsal dinner where we saw my sister, my parents, my new brother in law tim’s family and my cousins. i snuck a few paparazzo shots in, but my sister caught me. antonella was upset with me for sneaking

my cousin danielle and her daughters. maggie is so big now! tim and janelle hosted a slide show, and a bit of a thank you session and gave out some gifts to the wedding party. i got that fantastic skateboard, a really stunning tie and a sleek pair of cuff links. i was really beat by the end of that night

the following morning before the wedding charlotte and i wanted to try and get in a little bit of DC time and went over to the free zoo

we toured the south east asia wing i think, which was cool. but then we had to hurry back to the wedding. after a really beautiful ceremony the troops mounted and got ready to head over to glen echo park, in maryland. the park is a sort of amusement park from the turn of the century that is now a state park so it’s a really cool place to have a wedding

the wedding party went over to have our photos taken at a couple of cool locations before arriving to the reception

this photo would’ve been really cool if my film hadn’t loaded all jenky. i had to retouch the shit out of it to make it even look like something. there were tears and cuts all through the middle.

we got up to this old gas station and snapped a few shots. at this point i think i noticed that because there was another photographer there i didn’t feel the need to take as many shots myself. i can’t wait to see what she got because she shoots film! woooo! yay to film photographers still keeping it alive!

janelle’s bridesmaids were rosanna, jill, antonella and kara. those girls (with the exception of jill) would stay at my house and torment me all through my adolescence!  nah sike, they were cool… they only tormented me a little bit

we then got to the reception kick off. charlotte helped my sis by setting up a sort of photobooth thing up on the stage under this little red awning thing. it worked pretty well but had some issues due to the lack of responsiveness from the remote. i think a cable release on an old 35 mm would’ve worked a bit better because the camera kept “going to sleep” like a computer would and the focus would go off. the photos turned out cool for the most part

here’s one of me and charlotte

tim and janelle’s first dance

me and janelle right after the whole announcing thing and stuff. i have a ron donald haircut thanks to yosef the barber

tim and his mom

janelle’s photographer wanted to test out my camera.. i quickly tried to explain to her how to use it but she took her chances with what she knew. a cool photo of me and chuck came out blurry… oh well

my uncle dave and aunt yvonne

this is the carousel building

brian and danielle, cousin in law and cousin. now at this point i stopped shooting photos because i was too tired and too distracted. so there is a big lapse between moments. eventually night fell and charlotte and i got on the carousel

we took some jokey photos of us having a magnificent time before the ride even started

what a grand ol’ time!

i actually was a lot of fun. we rode along side my aunt diane and  second cousin jack. jack was loving it. second cousin maggie seemed a bit concerned but seemed to enjoy herself too

this guy knew my name and told me to take a picture of him. i did

a few minutes later janelle and tim boarded and i watched from the outside. her film and camera crew boarded with her

i love this one. my sister loves that giraffe

my mom was having a blast on it too!

the little 8mm video edit that was produced from the footage on this ride, along with the rest of the day was so adorable i never threw up. i wish the two of them endless happiness because they really do go so well together and are a perfect couple