So we’re back in the heat and the AC is finally working. Here is the longer drive I think. I may have misremembered (is that a word?) the length of one of the earlier ones cause I just remember that if I’m looking through this windshield for the first time then it’s Bobby the Beast, Bobby the Best, behind the wheel.

Bobby is a driving animal. He laid out 12 hours easy. I couldn’t believe it. I guess west coast driving is slightly different then east coast because there is more space and less to pass by. Does that make sense?

Either way we were on route to San Jose and Bobby put up with it all. The farts, the loudness, and the Hard Ticket to Hawaii. While we were in Portland apparently Joe met up with a friend to buy a bunch of crazy DVDs from him. Hard to find B and C movies I guess. Derek brought his laptop to be able to do “work” on the road, but it came in handy on a 12 hour drive when everyone behind the pilots seats got to watch this piece of junk. If you have a minute just youtube the skateboard assassin scene and you’ll understand.

We were an hour and a half behind the show so by the time the last band played we still weren’t there until an hour and a half later. Ilya got word to us that people were gonna stick around and party so we basically rolled in and played. Here is So Adult (first night I recorded them) and during their set the power drops out. The craziest shit happened at this show! I was standing there for a minute after loading in and I saw someone I recognized from New York! I don’t know her well but she is a friend of friends and what not. She was like “I saw that there was a band from Long Island but I didn’t recognize the name. Thought it was weird that I wouldn’t know anyone but apparently I do!” Totally fucking random. Only problem is I can’t remember her name because I am the worst at that. I know she lived in one of the 538 places, not the main one or Stolen Sleeves, but that other that did shows sometimes. I think it may be Sandra but I dunno. Anyway…

After the show we ate some banging local Mexican. I do love their Mexican though I am loyal to my authentic Taco Truck. That night we stayed with Derek’s aunt, Tammy.

We got another good shower and plenty of nice space. I slept in the fart room that night seeing as both Conor and Bo were fumigating the room. Derek’s aunt had a bunch of cute kitties and a really awesome but loud pooch. She fed us well in the morning and her son likes hockey. That’s all I remember.

Oh and she had this nightmare of a spider in her backyard. It’s fucking orange. That is not a good sign.

We headed out to what turned out to be one of the better digging days on the trip. Rasputin Music. As we turned the corner in the daylight I realized I may have stayed at a hotel around the corner with my mom and sister something like 20 years ago. I remember it really clearly but who knows.

Posse in effect.

At Rasputin we all made a good haul but the hidden gem was the 50 cent bin. This was one of the only “dollar bins” I’ve ever seen that had actual worthwhile records. Conor is showing the camera the Carly Simon record that we believe certain choices were made for sales because something about the cover art grabs one’s attention. You guessed it, the font choice.

I left with about 50 dollars worth of shit. Awesome stuff that I can’t find on the east coast.

After I left Rasputin I went searching for the other dudes who headed over to a different record store. In the process I stumbled on a yard sale that was awesome. This woman running it was walkin around in a weird bra top with a long sleeve wrapped at her waste with leopard print Hammer pants. She was awesome but declined to be photographed so I snapped a little something for reference.

She had a box of sport photographs which featured a collection of All Star Game stuff with players from The Ducks and The Sharks. The last time I was in San Jose I got some much sick Sharks swag I wish I could time travel just got that stuff.

She seemed really confused as to why anyone would want to photograph a yard sale so I told her it was because we don’t have stuff like this in NYC. She told me a story about how she stayed in the Bronx with a friend in the 80s. She told her friend that she saw a huge raccoon the size of a dog and her friend told her it was probably a rat.

I caught up with the guys at On The Corner Music. This spot was awesome too. I copped a lot of weird hip-hop stuff that is also hard to come by out east.

I was jealous of Conor’s grab… the Whiplash ep for a really good price. We then got talking to the gal running the shop. She was stoked to find out we were in bands. She snapped a picture of us “for the internet” but I haven’t been able to scope it out with my net skills.

She told us she was an artist as well and gave us her card. Look up “Steely Nash” if you wanna hear her voice, which isn’t bad. I asked if I could get a portrait in return for the one she just took of us. She said sure but then the phone rang and we were headed out the door so I grabbed one real quick to which she replied “that’s it? ok!” or something. Anyway cool record store.

On the way back to Tammy’s place someone spotted a little Gecko. Those things are so cute. I wish we had little mutated ones in New York. Cause you know they would be if they lived here. I had to coax it out of the shadows by tipping its tail a bit. Well worth it. After we got back to Tammy’s we were on our way out to The Chinatown Youth Center in Fresno. TBC.

Back in the House of Elrond with Cecelia, Justin, and Matt. When we walked up to this bridge Justin was like “Yo I literally bought a post card of this bridge earlier without knowing we were coming here” it was pretty funny.

Whatcom Park is what it’s actually called I believe.

The trails sort of lead straight through the city so people will often take a nature walk on their commute to work. Not a bad thing.

Cecelia took us to this spot where the kids do wild stuff.

No not drugs (or probably drugs too) but they jump off of cliffs. There are some kids right there. Lemme go around to the other side, hold on

…just a sec…

lemme just get situated…

there we are. Here is where the kids do crazy stuff. So you got those same kids up top , a girl who already jumped down below, and a guy behind the tree branch (who’s shadow is visible). I wasn’t able to get him in that shot though

Though I did get one in this one. See in the upper fourth of the picture the shirtless dude? There’s those two girls from a few frames ago to give you size reference. Big drop.

This one girl (on the right) sat there thinking it over and over. We waited a few minutes to see if she would get the courage but she reached the shit-or-get-off-the-pot moment and did nothing so we left.

We were gonna attempt to go down by the water but it was steep as shit and none of us had treaded sneakers on (‘cept maybe Cecelia)

We later gathered at Bo and Cecelia’s to meet up with the van. I have no clue what Matt is doing in this one.

This is Wuv at the Seattle show. Sometimes there are some gaps in the timeline between photos. I think this couple days has a bunch of gaps because I was tired, or driving, or something.

Wuv wears these little animal ear things like Gretchen Weiners does on Halloween at each show. Ilya’s quote about them was “we wear our ears so that you remember to wear yours”

Conor with some sort of camera malfunction. The venue reminded me of a west coast Silent Barn. In between the show and walking back and forth to this other bar spot some folks were at we heard karaoke coming from next door at an Irish bar. This dude was doing “Mother” and me and Matt went in to sing along. Justin took some video (edit: which won’t upload for some reason). The end of the night we hung out in the street talking to one of the dudes from The Exquisites who was basically the west coast version of Lubrano. We then had to make the hour and a half drive straight back to Bellingham for the 23rd time.

The following morning Bo got an early call that the van was ready. We gathered once more and collected all our shit and began to load it as the members of So Adult showed up one by one. Somewhere in the process we must’ve forgot to load the tapes into the van so they were lost forever, bummer shit. Also I’m pretty sure this is when the infamous “a tribe called quest” story happened. I was upstairs at the time so here’s what I heard: Bo was wearing his ATCQ shirt. A skinny white nerd walks up and says “Oh I just moved back from where they’re from. (Bo’s inner voice asks “oh, Queens huh?” while New Yorkers Justin and Conor watch this turd in disgust make a fool of himself) I’ve been listening to jazzy hip-hop all day. Just started making beats two days ago. Look me up – Jew York.” UGH. We then picked up Joe at his place. While there we saw his awesome screen printing set up. Up there is Conor with himself.

We had to make the drive from BHam to Seattle once more to grab Matt from Uncle Kenny’s (his fake uncle’s place who lives in Seattle) then we had a lovely long drive down to Portland. No AC. Quite a blast. I think that was our first long one, maybe like 12 hours or something. I can’t even remember because the days are blending.

The Portland show was a low point in my opinion but it didn’t matter. Hanging with So Adult was fun so it didn’t matter that people weren’t there.

So Adult tried a few songs that weren’t in their normal set and sort of failed. I loved it. They also played Citizen’s Arrest (the video jam) and it was splendid. That song rules.

After the show we drove to Bo’s sister’s place which was about 40 minutes south of Portland. The house was pretty banging and we stayed in the movie room. Lots of Pirates of the Caribbean posters in there. Good shower. So on.

Funny stuff taking place in the van during the no AC period. A few days before Matt would pretty much never pop his shirt off for any reason but the heat just drove that man to the edge. I did start the shirts-off party the day before, but Matt was carrying the torch.

Justin and Joe. I would later learn why Joe preferred to keep his bag on his lap…

Here is where everything changed (click to make it bigger). We stopped in the desert somewhere to fix the AC. Double charged it and finally the windows could be rolled up without everyone dying. More coming soon.