Hot Garbage and Fahri are both in their respective cites. Six people sitting on the packed equipment in one van can cause severe delirium. In the van went spent most of the time screaming motorcycle engine noises and chanting whaaaan whaaaan whaaaan. ( an effective method to thwart someone complaining)
Heres what else we did in the van (most frequent to least)
1. Talked about making motorcycle noises
2. Pondered when we were going to be able to drink again. (it's a big deal)
3. Talked about how bad the van smelled
4. Speculated if the van would ever smell "nice" again. (it doesn't)
5. Talked about the bang boxxx (aside from Miles and Sarah)

That's all. -Love Jeffy and Jon Von Beavs

"that's why they call me blade.."
a/k/a why I am a valuable asset "on the road" with friend's bands...

Thursday I was wondering what I would do to fill time before we left for the two day road trip I was going on with Hot Garbage when the news hit that Michael Jackson died. This was unfortunate and came as a pretty big bummer. So instead of trying to find something to do, I just watched the CNN reports most of the night and then went out to the bar with Jon Beavo for about an hour or so. Strange enough sleep seemed to come pretty easy for me.

The ride up to Minnesota was both good and bad. Not even ten minutes on the road Jeff stops at McDonalds where we all buy a bunch of bad food. This will lead to problems later down the line for sure, but it's now 1:30 in the afternoon on Friday and I hadn't eaten since the afternoon before. Jon Beavo and I switch off seats from time to time, and I get criticized by both of them for changing into my 'pajama pants'. I set up some kind of 'bed' in the middle of the van using the Star Wars pillow and Unicorn blanket I brought with. I only sleep on it for about a half hour, and then when I switch again with Jon Beavo who takes a liking to it and sleeps for a long time on it. I start to feel sick about 3 hours into the ride, and knowing I can't make it for another half of a trip without exploding I ask Jeff to stop at the next place he can. We pull into a rest stop which also says something about "law enforcement tribute". Not sure whats going on with that. We get back on the road relatively soon after and I take a short nap up front, breaking Jeff's van rule of no sleeping shotgun, but Jon Beavo is also sleeping in the back so who cares? Jeff put on Underworld and talked about how he really enjoyed repetitive music to go alongside something like a repetitive drive. I wasn't really into that idea at all... I like the music and everything, but if I looked at it that way I think I would have wanted to listen to something else.


Rest stop #2 looks a lot cleaner than the first, though when I get in bathroom it smells like someone took a shit, dumped the contents of an entire dumpster on it, then took another shit on top. I half gag as I make my way to the stall to get whatever I needed out of me out as fast as possible. I can't help but smile and laugh at some of the most genius bathroom graffiti I have ever come across - COMCAST SUCK MY DICK - in giant capital letters.

Jeff got the show in Minnesota hooked up from the Liarbirds, who have recently moved there from Milwaukee. About two years ago Jeff and I saw them play the East Wonder Lake house and got along with them well enough, and Jeff has kept in touch with them apparently, on top of Hot Garbage just playing Elgin with them a couple months ago. These guys are awesome... We found some new friends to party with.
But they weren't there yet when we got there. As we pulled up to the house we were greeted by someone with half a set of teeth who we later learned like to call everyone a faggot right before telling them he was going to fuck them in their asses. I can see how this may seem inappropriate to some, but I got a kick out of it. We met some nice people who embraced the fact that we just came six hours for Hot Garbage to play a show, others who weren't so cool with us, but it all evens out. Some rowdy types were talking to Jeff about it and then started asking if we knew this and that Chicago bands... He seemed a little off put when Jeff said he knows Maps & Atlases, then the guy asked if we know Make Believe and I kind of shut him up by saying "We know people who do BAD DRUGS with the extended cap'n jazz family" (And if you wanted to make a family tree you could link us to that extended family as well, but really you can do that if you make a family tree out of ANY existing Chicago band. We do incest the right way... everyone has been in a band with someone or another.) Later on when Jeff & Jon are setting up (they played third, right in the middle of the show, most likely to the most people) this guy asks me "When are you guys playing?" I tell him I'm not in the band and he just shakes his head and says "Not good... not good!" before walking out the front door. I wasn't sure if he meant it or not, but found out soon enough that he didn't as he and his friends went fucking insane over Hot Garbage. Meanwhile I'm trying to videotape the chaos while standing on a couch, after I have drank about 4 cups of the everclear-ridden "Magic Juice"....
Someone spills a whole beer in Jon Beavo's spraypainted keyboard and he then puts it on its side wiping it off, hitting all the keys while doing so. It was funny. Then Jeff walks around with his backpack handing out cds and selling t-shirts.

I'm hanging out in the kitchen getting acquainted with Logan from Liarbirds (I already know Lupe slightly, and Zach seems pretty antisocial) and then all of the sudden I have this little hispanic looking girl who I noticed had a really cute ass asking me to take a puff from my cigarette. I let her and then she tells me how bad she is being.. I ask why? and she tells me she is a singer and it is terrible for her to smoke. Making small talk, I ask what she sings and she tells me WHERE she sings. So I let her know I'm not even from Minnesota, I just want to know WHAT she sings. So she does this stance in front of me then starts doing this American Idol style vocal delivery, then she is getting way too close in my personal space and I think about if it would be offensive if I were to try and make out with her or something. Well I wasn't drunk enough to "go for it" yet, so I just let let continue invading my space while she grabbed her chest and did some kind of weird dancing to go along with it. I smiled and shook my head when she was done and she told me "That's Mariah... I fucking LOVE Mariah Carey!" I'm not so sure this girl fits in where we are at and then I kind of think it may have been for the better that I didn't try to kiss her. Fuck it.

Meanwhile Jeff has sold a couple shirts, and Jon Beavo comes up to him to ask for one of himself to sell to this girl he has been talking to in the kitchen. Her name is Jackie and she is pretty cute. I see him take a dollar from her and think he sold it to her for that price, but later find out that he charged about six bucks. He then spent that money on beer later on when the house supply ran out. But that is off topic. He is now holding a giant permanent marker and telling Jackie how good she would look with sideburns. She finally gives in and he draws them on. Then he tells her to draw on his plain white shirt, something he usually has me do when he is really drunk. Someone suggests she draw him, and so she looks at the picture of him from the shirt she just bought and does her drunken best to recreate it. Jon got a good keepsake out of it.... He is now drunkenly flirting pretty hard when he is asking her to draw more on her face, or have her draw on his face. She covers him in what I say looks like The Crow while Jeff says it looks like Cats, then he takes the marker and asks if he can draw a moustache on her. This is when she drops the bomb - "If you draw a moustache on me my boyfriend won't fuck me tonight!" We continued to party with this girl and the Liarbirds for a while, checking out bands in the hot basement from time to time and then going outside for air.

(missing fight scene - i'm trying to do something else with this story. sorry. ask us in person...)

After the show Hot Garbage gets paid pretty well, and we are told that there is a tent set up for us if we want it. We do. We hang out at the fire with two Liarbirds for another couple hours, then the five of us take to the tent to try and go to sleep. Earlier on in the rain I find what I think is a lighter in the road. I check it, it works, I put it in my pocket. It's not until we are all in the tent that I remember that I have it, and I tell Jeff or someone else that I found a cool lighter. I try to turn it on and find out I hit the switch of what is a dual lighter/switchblade. Pretty awesome. I'm completely wasted off Magic Juice and laughing about something or another when Jeff starts to yell at me - "What the fuck are you laughing at? I hate the part of the night where there is no more beer for me to keep drinking and other people are so hammered!" I quiet down so they can all get to sleep, trying to sleep a little on my own. I laugh at Jon Beavo talking about how the rain is soaking him, it's even funnier to me because when we got in the tent he jumped into the spot I wanted and I told him that and he just laughed at me.

Anyways, I didn't sleep much. I was awake to see Jon stand up, freezing cold and soaking wet and take his shirt off and throw it at Jeff, who woke up for a moment to laugh at him. Eventually Jeff and I go in the van and look at websites on his laptop and I see Zach from Liarbirds wandering around.
"You're other guys spent the night with us." I tell him, but he doesn't hear me cuz the next thing he says is
"I think I lost my band."
I tell him again that we all stayed in the tent, where they are still sleeping. We ask if he wants to hang in the van with us but he decided not to and goes and sits in their van. We see him every twenty or so minutes going down to check the tent, only coming back to look more bummed out each time than the last. They were headed out on a month long tour that morning, and I think he was trying to get the ball rolling. Lupe wakes up and tells us he usually does not drink that much/party that hard/stay up so late, and asks "When did we go to bed.. like one in the morning?"
"More like four!" we laugh. I still feel just as drunk as I did six hours before, which is pretty fucking drunk...

After everyone wakes up there is talk about going to a restaurant to eat but I really wish we could just hit up a drive thru and eat in the van. Hanging with the Liarbirds for another hour or so seems like fun, and eventually with the help of their GPS search we settle on Denny's. We tell them we will follow them there. For some reason, and maybe only because I pointed it out on the way into town and Jon Beavo told me it was the worst restaurant ever, I spotted the Denny's as we passed it on the highway. I mention that Liarbirds did not stop, and both Jeff and Jon say they didn't see it either. We follow them down the road a bit, until they pull a fast one, spinning their van around in a very narrow two lane highway. Jeff doesn't feel as ballsy, so he pulls into some driveway and then we head back the other way, where they are parked on the side with their hazards. They pull into a gas station parking lot where Logan tells us "We don't know where it is!" I tell them we passed it about a minute up the road and we have a good laugh about it and make our way to the destination.
In the parking lot I count my money to see if I have enough to eat and see that one of the bills in my possession is not only caked in blood but in cocaine as well. I think about how awesome it would have been had it been my blood, my cocaine on that bill.. instead I just feel disgusted and can't wait to get rid of it. Ugh. We partied hard the evening before, but not THAT hard. Okay, hard enough... we put most people to shame with our past 4 am antics. Keep in mind I only slept about 25 minutes in the tent before my back was covered in rain water that leaked in.

Then we drive. It seems to go a lot longer than the ride up to Minnesota for some reason. Maybe it's starting to get to me. I don't know. I am still pretty drunk, yet I am uncomfortable to the point of where I can't get to sleep no matter how exhausted I am. I tried for a while. We stop at a gas station and I buy a Dr Pepper and tell Jon I'm sitting up front. He bitches about how when he is in the back he just falls asleep right away, and I try to explain to him how if I could sleep through a long drive just by sitting in the back I would call back seat no matter what. He still puts up a little stink as he seems to think it will detract from the fun.

We get into town around 3 or 4 and the show isn't going to start until 8 or 9. We drive around a little bit after we ask where a thrift store is for Jon, who seems to think he needs to buy new pants because his only pair are soaked.
I opted to skip lunch/dinner (taco bell) to buy four dollar priced books at the thrift store. This proved itself as a very bad financial decision later on at the show. We went to a huge park and Jon took his shirt off, unveiling the two giant dicks Jackie had drawn on his chest that he once again forgot about. As he worked his way in the direction of a giant family Jeff paused to laugh about it before letting him know he might not want to be shirtless. Once again leave it to Jon Beavo not to understand why someone says not to do something... He continued on walking towards the crowd of people and all we could do was laugh about it. Jeff made a stop in the bathroom before we left and when he came out he told us how there was this hole cut in the wall of the stall that said "get sucked now". I explained to him that it was a glory hole, whether he knew it or not, then we made some jokes about it. Oh and while they were eating I was walking along the rocks of the lake where I noticed I giant dead carp, still in one piece. I kept telling them to come look at it and they were getting annoyed because they were trying to eat. Eventually they did look. It was a big fucking carp.

We spent about four or five or ten hours before the show doing NOTHING. Parked in front of the venue, Jon seemed to want to rest in the van while Jeff and I enjoyed the couch and air conditioning inside. The guy who was running the show asked us something like "What's with the other guy from your band? Does he just enjoy sitting in uncomfortable heat?"

We ran into Shane earlier, he said he just got off work and needed to take a nap. He came back and told us he didn't know how long he was going to stay. Last time Hot Garbage played this place with Heart Shaped Hate someone from Shane's band (Screaming Cyn-Cyn and the Pons) had them stay upstairs where they partied all night. This was not to be the case on this evening, as the only member of their band who showed up was Shane, who happened to be going on no sleep, who decided to continue drinking instead of napping, who had to work at seven am, and who also had to leave to play a solo show in Minneapolis immediately following the next day's shift. He was a trooper for sticking around and we all appreciated his presence. After I watched both Hot Garbage and Gold play I started to feel sicker than usual, and going on 25 minutes of sleep and having no food make it worse. I split a red bull with Jon and still felt like shit. Told Jeff I was thinking about taking a nap in the van, and he told me I looked really bad as he gave me the keys. As soon as I got out there I laid the passenger seat back, put my pillow under my head and hoped that I would wake up to catch Zebras play. I woke up a little quicker than I thought I would, covered in sweat and not knowing how long I had been asleep. The tally that Jeff and Jon gave me was "somewhere around 45 minutes" Shit. So now I was still underslept, covered in sweat, and with nothing in my stomach. I drank 2 more red bulls and one of those red bull colas that have recently been under attack for having "trace elements of cocaine" in them. Tasted like shit. Not even in a good cocaine kind of way. Fuck it. Luckily all of the energy drinks brought me back and I was able to enjoy the Zebras set, even if I sat on the couch the whole time. Shane talked to them and hooked us up with a place to stay, and Lacey told us if we waited around for them to load everything out we could follow them to their house.

Jeff has a miniature breakdown inside and starts yelling at Jon for sleeping all day and asking for the keys to go sleep again. He holds his hand out with the keys for about two minutes when I take them, thinking I can get my camera out of the van and shoot some footage of a good old fashioned Hot Garbage fight. It wasn't meant to be, but when I got back Jeff's hand was still extended in the same spot. The guy doing the show came and asked if everything was alright. Jon and I went outside then Jeff comes out to tell us he got kicked out.
"This guy asked me if we were ever leaving. Then he goes and asks me if we are sleeping in the van."

I woke up on the futon and strangely enough did not feel the wrath of my cat allergies.
Jeff disappeared in the night.


Before we went to bed Lacey told us we could play video games or watch movies or whatever, so thinking I was going to be there for a while I put on the first season of Saturday Night Live. I remembered watching the first episode on one of the 3 am reruns when I lived in Chicago, thought about how cool the Jim Henson puppets involved were. Janis Ian was the musical guest and while I've heard some of her songs before something happened in my head when she was singing and I was looking at her and thinking - wow, she's fucking beautiful. Funny that the song, "At Seventeen" is sort of about being ugly? After episode one ended I didn't know where the remote was and didn't feel like looking, so I put on the Roky Erickson documentary, which was very interesting despite me going in and out of sleep for the middle. I'd watch it again. I went out to smoke and check to see if Jeff was ready to get going, but when I walked up to the van he wasn't there. When I got back to the Zebras house Jon Beavo was outside and seemed happy to see me.
"I thought you were both gone!" he says.
I tell him I went to check on Jeff, who was no longer where he was when I checked two hours ago. Eventually Jon talks to Jeff who went walking around Madison.
"He says he'll be back soon but remember how far away the capital building is?"
I mention that he has no idea where we are, and how it could be close. Vincent from Zebras wakes up while we are getting ready to go, and we sit outside waiting for Jeff. He shows up about a half hour later.

The drive home seems short until RonRon (Jeff's GPS, who I wrote a song about the day before) decided to take us from Wisconsin to Rockford through a toll, then back through to Wisconsin (and the toll once again) before we get back on track. Other than seeing a giant Ronald McDonald and getting 5 for 5 on Arby's roast beef there isn't much else to say about the ride back. Thats it. Two days on the road with Hot Garbage.