As I'm sure many of you have noted from the pages of The New Yorker, Harper's, Teen Vouge and Forbes, The Architects have been a little busy cock-slapping every town, dell and hamlet in America with the sinewy phallus of the instant-classic, new record "Vice".

You will of course, forgive me for not posting anything for the last little while.

I will attempt to be as succinct as possible in my summary of the events so far...

Before arriving here in Cleveland, we started out with the quick jaunt around Florida and Alabama with our friends in Cruiserweight and Cutman. Florida is still muggy and Bama still knows how to party and just before we left Mobile to drive first back to Kansas City for a shower and then to Denver to link up with The BellRays, we were approached by a talking conch shell who in exchange for us agreeing to not boil him alive, gave to us a magical feather that made the price of gas drop by several dollars per gallon so we would not lose our asses getting to the next show.

That fucker lied to us, the feather did not work outside the Mobile City Limits and we missed out on a succulent seafood morsel. Never trusting conch again. It's a hard lesson, it hurts....but it's part of growing up.

The air in Denver is still too thin for birds to fly or for me to breathe. The unabated ultraviolet rays of solar radiation that bear down through the oxygen wisp were so strong that all my Floridian mosquito bites morphed before my eyes into tumors that sizzled like the creases in a slice of bacon. "Denver" is actually the Ute indian word for "Skin Cancer".

None of this is true.

The first show at the Larimer Lounge with The BellRays was truly great. Lots of people, lots of smiles, fair prices for domestics and wells. This part is true.

After an ungodly long drive to a show in Omaha that did not happen and then an equally unbearable drive back to Kansas City, we slept.

In the morn, we went to Arthur Bryant's with the BellRays for BBQ and then took naps until showtime at The Riot Room. (except for me b/c I had to go to Sam's Club for a gross of new boxer briefs to last me through the tour.) As everyone already knows, Kansas City is the center of the Rock and Roll universe and the show was predictably awesome with the notable exception of one shitheel who despite his insistance and shameless begging, did not manage to get his fucking teeth knocked out with the heavy end of a mic stand. We promise to remedy if he ever comes back to a show.

The next morning....

(THIS PART IS ALL TRUE)

we had just picked Zach up and were on our way down Broadway to the I-35 entrance that was to carry us to Minneapolis for the show that night when I saw the police car slip in behind us. He rode our ass for about three blocks (just a hair shy of the I-35 ramp) before he popped the siren and hit the lights. My psyche was shitting itself with pea soup b/c I knew exactly what the cop had only just learned- we have a shit-pile of unpaid parking tickets...and my license has been suspended for a LOOONG time.

When the cop started asking questions, there seemed to be a lot of things I did not know. He seemed to know a great deal about me, my license, my insurance and my amazing history as a recidivist parking scofflaw.

While the cop was running my name and social, I dictated a list to Adam of all the people to call for bail money. I visualized the hamster-holes in the plexiglass barrier in the cop car and the constant backwards pull of the handcuffs....the baggy jumpsuit...the shithead who takes your picture...deep cleansing breaths now b/c he's coming back to the window.

The cop writes us two tickets (driving on a susp lic & expired tags) and tells zach that he has to drive and that we are free to go.

I almost cry with relief but nonetheless spend the next seven hours mindfucked with confusion since I had been so utterly certain that I was going to spend the day in jail.

more later...
-b