alright so after we woke up in jackson we went to this place called beagle bagel, a place jenny used to go to when she lived in the south. the bagels were not n.y. qualified to be called bagels, but it was ok to fill our stumaches. we sat and discussed the real house wives of various cities and while watching some housewives on big flat screens. after eating and filling our water jugs we hit the road on our way to memphis, tennesee.

we hit some southern rain that slowed the pace a bit but made good time to get there and spend some good hanging time.

the first thing on our list of things to do was check out the legendary sun studios which is where pretty much all of american rock and roll was created. well, that’s not true but it is sort of.

brought out the old tri-pod for this one.

inside there wasn’t much history to be found aside from over priced souvenirs. i tried to snap this photo of a roy orbison single because when i was a youngster my mom loved some orbison. we glanced around a bit, got some moonpies (no pennywhistles) and headed out. it was a cool place to stop in and get a postcard (did you ever get it charlotte?) but not really worth spending much time in unless you are a souvenir collector. if i had more cash i mighta bought some singles maybe

our next mission was to lay our eyes on the mississippi river. i was stoked about this because the mississippi is responsible for a lot of history in the united states and i’ve never seen it in person

that’s a bridge and another one of those cleopatra looking thingys. i should do some research i guess but why are they everywhere?

we got out at this park and met a lady selling delicious snow cones of many varieties. she was also selling pre-packaged pickles. say that ten times fast! quick!

this was like a steamboat or something i dunno

charlotte sent me a “wish you were here” picture from the beach in new york at this second, so i responded with my own from memphis

we ate our ices in the blazing sun and enjoyed the serenity of the river. it was here when i first got a severe urge to touch the water of the mississippi river. the other hounds talked me out of it because the footing of the river’s edge didn’t look too solid

i just kept thinking “how could i come this far and not touch that damn water!”

we got back in the van and headed over to goner records. i found a ton of cool shit and bought 1/4 of it. das oath 9 inch on 10 inch (what?), infest no man’s slave lp and a jam “going underground” single. it was priced right, too. good shit. oh and that’s a overpass for a train above. it looks like a town. cool

at goner we saw a flier for our show in the window. again cool to see people are involved and into your shows when you get to town

we were hungry and wanted to get some memphis barbecue so us and girlfriends talked to the workers at goner i think and they suggested this place for us to go to. girlfriends got their before us. that’s their van

the place was just called “the bar-b-q shop.” seems simple enough to me. i had the best baked beans i’ve ever eaten in my life at this joint. i think laura ordered the tic tacs from her purse because this place put meat in everything

i don’t know what this is a photo of

after we were really stuffed we decided to get some groceries (beer) before going over to the house show

they have grocery stores that are ACTUALLY called “piggly wiggly” and they aren’t joking about it either. seriously. the inside of this place was more like what i imagined all of the south to be like. people with no shoes, crazy hair, obese, stained shirts and shorts and no shirts, etc.

this was hanging in the beer section “hey guys great barbecue! pass me one of those burgers please! oh you want a b-HOLY SHIT WHAT IS THAT FLYING PIG HEAD”

so pat took this photo of laura holding a case of steel reserve, posted it on tumblr and in approximately 41 second 10 people had commented on the image. which proves my theory: people like beer. when we got back to the show we hung out with the folks that lived in the house, played some lawn soccer with andy, benny and some locals and prepped to play.

local band all howlers opened up and blew my fucking mind. (jenny took these two photos) this band is so good! they started posting some recordings online too. i wish the recordings sounded more like they did when they played live because i don’t think it’s the best representation. they had so much more energy! like holy shit! there was a feeling in the air almost (cheesy yes, but true). i felt like these kids in memphis just grew up with rock and roll in their blood or some shit

we played a good set next (maybe my most sweaty set) and then girlfriends took the floor. this set was like another holy shit moment. and it’s funny, both laura and i had the same feeling. we both said we felt like we were at a house party in 1950 or something. people were getting down dancing and shit, shouting during songs and all that craziness! i felt so good for girlfriends, it must’ve been a really rewarding performance! after discarding sweaty clothes and packing up our van we followed the howlers back to their gigantic, beautiful house where pat played his aerosmith genesis game. the howlers offered us showers and even inflated a queen size air mattress for nick, plus both laura and pat both got couches! unfortunately we had to wake up at the ass crack of dawn the following day because we wanted to spend some quality time at our next destination – new orleans, louisiana.

so the next stop on the ol’ weed hounds tour was jackson, mississippi. i think because we spent so much time in oxford during the day once we got to jackson we were only about three hours away from the show. not to mention that jackson really didn’t seem to have much to do.

don’t get me wrong, it seemed sort of nice when we were outside the city limits… but once inside we didn’t really see much. this was one of the days that i took my new longboard for a nice ride. i noticed a few slanting slopes and powered my way up and down for a number of runs. it really carves like a snowboard

we played at this place called the tavern, which had decent sound and a nice space. this fellow cole from the band dead gaze hooked up a nice show

i zoned out on the floor of the empty stage for a little while before moving in my drums and shit.

at some point i decided it was necessary that i get photos of nick’s hilarious cartoons. these things had my sides splitting in the van, i shit you not! i think the story behind two stern dads was when he and i were up front (loosely – me on right, him on left) and we were pondering the concept of a two father family. these things make me giggle still

the next one was meant to accompany an idea that we had quite a long while ago. a few months ago nick, laura and i were heading east on long island listening to U2… we came to the conclusion that U2 is a total “dad band” and that someone should do a blog called “dad rock.” being that the idea still didn’t exist in the internet world we came up with a list of our top dad albums. a few may be questionable, but we were very tired so cut us some slack (or suggest your own – it could be fun!):

• Aerosmith – Pump
• Cream – Disraeli Gears
• Creedence Clearwater Revival – s/t
• The Eagles – Hotel California
• Grateful Dead – American Beauty
• Hot Tuna – Burgers
• Led Zeppelin – IV
• Tom Petty – Damn the Torpedoes
• R.E.M. – Green
• Rolling Stones – Exile on Main Street
• Bruce Springsteen – Born in the USA
• U2 – Joshua Tree
• The Who – Who’s Next?

this other one is a drawing of what became the constant tour joke based on scene from the sopranos. i think pat mighta been the first to say it… but the concept of a writer taking a pen and writing down the lines “when do i get my money?” with the reply “when you suck the money out of my ass! now get the fuck outta here!” were endlessly hilarious to us in our slightly dazed states. another nick rice masterpiece

the tavern offered us free food… full meals! only the first perk of playing

we opened up… played to a room of (we were told) over 200 with maybe 13 interested parties. kind of took the spark out of my performance. if you ain’t interested sometimes that just makes me ain’t interested. “whatever… they didn’t care, oh well,” i thought, “at least we still get to watch girlfriends”

girlfriends were fucking awesome as usual but to my dismay.. they got the same freaking response! no one seemed to care

“why are you turds all here?” i kept thinking as my eyes darted from frat boy to frat boy. then it hit me – remember when i said that jackson didn’t seem to have anything to do? yeah, this was the only thing to do. so everyone from the city was at this bar because it was the only “place to be” as kool moe dee would say

so at first i thought it was just me who was frustrated by the crowd…

…then benny jumped down from the stage and got in the middle of the dance floor to try and stir things up (i took that shot with jenny’s cam) that was an interesting moment. it still didn’t phase them. they continued drinking and hitting on one another at the bar behind us. end of the night we were a little disappointed but then cole came over to us at the nice dude he was an informed us that we had just gotten paid more then we did for the other days combined! like waaaay more! enough to cover us pretty much all the way home. holy shit! it turns out that so many people paid to get in the place that we made bank on the door. the bar probably made thousands. we headed back to cole’s place and partied for a bit and then went home with his two generous friends who offered us a place to stay. that ruled. they had cute kitties and nice decorations. we stayed with chrissy, laura slept in her daughter’s room. how’s that for weird? i have no photos of these things cause i was tired. i did get to see some of the famed “mississippi mud” as well. good times. the next day we were headed to memphis so that was something to look forward to. cool!