here’s some of the visual aid i forgot about from the last post. i haven’t been scanning a lot lately.

this is a view from keely’s balcony. we woke up that morning really exhausted for the most part. not sleeping in coldness will do that for you.

this is the floor conor and i slept on. it was the only one with a fan and boy did it not do much in a terribly hot room full of hell

this is the room justin and matt slept in that i got really mad about. this is a photo of matt smelling his own socks. don’t ask me why.

matt was considering wearing this mets shirt in albany because i guess they like the mets in albany. i don’t know

matt got into the habit of writing the folks that let us stay in places little notes. here’s one

we loaded out the jazz and conor went to check the status of the van.

here’s conor drivin up in the van

and here he is in the van. i wish i had taken this one second later when his head was further out the window so the lighting wouldn’t be so odd

so i had a plan originally to take a group shot in front of every place we play but thanks to all the crazy shit we got ourselves into i forgot to get it done. this was the only place we did it. the idea originally was attempted with the weed hounds but that didn’t work out either after the first day. anyway, this is a great group shot.

before leaving for albany we had to go drive to meet keely because we still had her house keys. on the way we passed canada again i think. that’s probably it in the picture

bye keely, thanks!

so we got back on the road with justin in the driver’s seat and matt in shotgun. it was hilarious to watch matt squirm up front. we were driving along and saw some flashing lights telling us to put on the radio. it said there was a huuuuge accident and that the delays were insane. we quickly brought out the analog gps and rerouted ourselves away from trouble

we hit the rural route and saw things like this. who is this guy? what’s he doing? what war did he fight in and what side was he on?

so with justin behind the wheel we were cruising along the rural route and everything was fine until KABLINK the van dies again. some shit popped out of the engine and a fan belt thing flew out. we pull over and think we’re totally fucked – being in the middle of nowhere. one of us happens to look across the street and says “hey wait a sec… does that say auto repair right across the street?” holy fuck that’s lucky. i jogged down the road and grabbed  what parts i could find

so we pull in and the guys there seem a little bummed that they have to actually work on something but after we explain we’re in a band and we have a show to get to their moods seem to change a bit.

hey check out this cat! fan-tastic!

so we sat there and thought about the real meaning behind tom petty lyrics, because the waiting was the hardest part

these dudes that ran the shop were slow ass movers. at one point the mechanic like got in a car and left for burger king or something

so what does matt do when times get tough? he busts out the cooler

conor did what i eventually had to do as well –  he took a walk down the road away from the frustration

it was so annoying to be in a place where they move at their own pace and aren’t concerned with where you have to be. they were so unconcerned that they kept going back into their other garage to work on their amateur hot rod. granted it was pretty cool, but c’mon!

this dog was kinda cool too. he was nice. his owner (who looked like a side character in a western) was a real odd bird

after hours of painstakingly mid-paced labor our man shrek (yep, he went by shrek) had the job done. i asked him how he got the name and he told me “when the movie came out people started making fun of me and saying i reminded them of shrek and it just stuck” to which i replied “i’m sorry that your friends make you feel sad inside.” no, i didn’t really say anything like that but how depressing is that story? maybe not so depressing considering this guy was racist and homophobe. what the hell else could we do about it though – we couldn’t lecture him on race relations. he was the only dude who could get us back on the road so we weren’t about to tell him that calling his parole officer an offensive word was wrong. at least we all agreed on the beastie boys. (also side note: he had a motley crüe tattoo)

so shrek and co only charged us something like 80 dollars for about 7 hours of labor and parts. we were really shocked and pretty damn skeptical about the condition of the van. i pretty much had my fingers crossed the entire length of the drive to albany. we drove really slow but with the steady driving of ol’ hank hickey and the relaxed attitude of the awesome dudes in end of a year / aficionado we were able to get to albany with about 20 minutes to spare. listening to vitalogy probably had a hand in it too.

our adrenal glands were on warp speed while packing in our gear. we were so on fire from the thrill of making it in time. because the whole trip to albany felt like it would be a wash we ended up playing our best set of the tour. the next week a nice little write up about the show included a few paragraphs and photos of our portion. when we loaded off the stage i was stunned that we made it. so stunned i walked back to the van to pass out on the sidewalk for a few minutes before watching the next sets

matt joined me by the van and i think if he were winning an award for arriving on time the only person he’d thank would be the cooler

after the end of a couple of great sets by aficionado and end of a year we went to a little after party. the interesting thing about these nights were after all the shows on tour there are usually parties. however when three fourths of a band doesn’t party it always makes for interesting scenarios. we were the couch flower old farts at the party but that didn’t stop nick from rapping with us for a good hour or so. we then headed to who’s ever house we ended up staying at.

sorry but i have no recollection of who’s place it was because we were bounced back and forth between members a few times. i slept fairly well that night having been sat on a couch… however a giant fan blowing cool albany air into my lungs woke me up in a cold chill. i picked up my things and sat on the complete opposite end of the room as far away from any fan as i could get. justin must’ve slept the best that night having stayed in nick’s girlfriend’s room while she was staying at nick’s place that night. getting a bed to sleep in on a tour is a pretty unheard of thing.

from this point on we maybe have gone to a home depot to get some real parts for the van. i can’t remember. i’m sure in the next couple of rolls i have there may be some evidence of that but all i recall is conor getting pissed at something and walking to the next shopping center by himself, us getting a bunch of keys made and real aluminum to replace the soda cans on the muffler. our next stop was boston and it was the final show of the short tour. to be concluded…