i'm kidding. i never say that. even when there are 3 people and they all work at the bar, i like to hear myself talk so i still rap it up like there's no tomorrow. this shouldn't take long cause it's one day on a tour that was more than 2 weeks long. although, i have to say, this was a fairly eventful day so Im probably completely full of shit.

the drive from seattle to spokane is short. it's a good thing too cause i still felt shitty when i woke up the day after my sober seattle kick off. this could have been because i slept on a couch wrapped in kublakai's snuggie. yes. kubi has a snuggie. i think it's funny too.

right. so before leaving seattle, i made arrangements to pick up a box of freshly printed Spork Kills t-shirts, which i will be making available to the general public over the weekend. the people at the printing place were sweethearts and did a wonderful job with my goods. if you're ever in need in the seattle area or otherwise give Good Times Printing a try.

on the way out of the print shop, either because i'm weak, clumsy or both, i tried to open the door with arms wrapped around my new box of shirts in a hugging fashion. of course, i stumbled a bit and ended using my knuckle to catch the heavy swinging door right on the edge and created a nice bloody gash complete with translucent flap of skin on my index finger. that felt great later when i was playing ugly truth on stage all sweaty. the nice people at Good Times did give me a band aid, but i was a little bummed that it didn't have some cute girly graphics on it like bears or hearts, or bears with hearts. either one would have made me happy.

Street Teamer, Brandon from Phoenix rocks the new garb:

we got to Spokane and after loading into a venue that has changed names and owners like 7 times in the last 2 years we went looking for coffee. oddly, even though Spokane is only a few hrs from seattle, it's not littered with specialty coffee shops so we had to do the good old fashioned Mel's diner variety. i drank like 9 cups of coffee in 20 minutes and on my walk back to the venue found a bag of crack on the ground. i live in Brooklyn, people. That’s Brooklyn, ny with all the famous projects and the big ugly rep and all and i've never found a bag of crack on the ground before. i knew this was gonna be a weird night. since no one on my tour was a crackhead, i was faced with the dilemma of what to do with this crack. For some reason, i couldn't bring myself to just throw it away. At the same time, as much as I wanted to keep this bizarre souvenir, i wasn't down with getting pulled over and cavity searched either. i decided the smartest course of action would be to stick it in one of those street corner free newspaper dispensers. this particular box provided Spokane's pedestrians with real estate guidance and crack. well it provided crack now. Kubi and Midnite interrupted me saying that it might be a little irresponsible to leave that in there cause some innocent person or kid might happen upon it and use the drugs. since i couldn't convince myself that finding free crack was a good enough motivator to get someone straight who’d never done it before to try smoking rock cocaine, my ruling on the fate of this particular bag of crack was upheld. i mean, come on! who would open that thing and go "well, i've always thought this $5 per pop rock candy was a poison that would leave me jobless, homeless and toothless but since i happened on this one for free, i'm gonna give it a try." i thought it might give someone a good story. "i was looking for an apartment in Spokane and i found crack instead."




when the show started i was so fired up from the 12 cups of black coffee and the ground score that i found myself bouncing maniacally at the front of the stage to each opening act. there were a couple of kids that were shockingly bad but then some pretty average guys and one dude who was really pretty good. i decided to tell the good kid that (huge mistake) at the end of the night but we'll get to that. lemme describe the set up in this loan default waiting to happen. sorry BLVD but it's just simple statistical likelihood. besides, i liked the name Zombie Room so much more than the Boulevard. GENERIC. Why don’t you just call it Venue? anyway, there was a railing that separated the 21+ drinking area from the anything goes, watch the show area and you weren't allowed to bring your drink past this railing to watch the performance. that means that The Let Go and i spent the entire night posturing, pointing and glaring at a room a full of drunkards some 20 feet away. i couldn't tell at all whether or not they were so rowdy because they liked what they were hearing, hated what they were hearing or didn't hear it all and were just plain drunk and rowdy. my money was on option 3.

despite my doubt, a few of the hooligans crept over for my set and they were appreciative so i felt better about the whole thing. i still think it's a piss poor live show design, but hey, far be it from me to stop these guys from losing another nightclub. i closed with Just A Friend as is typical and everyone came out of their slumber to sing along. There was a gigantic Art major bouncer guarding the entrance to the dancefloor and some d.b. walking past on his way to the bathroom muttered under his breath, "this guy fuckin' sucks." the gentle art giant told the guy that if he didn't like it he could get the fuck out. he was digging it so much he defended my honor and then cam over to tell me about how the little fella scooted off with his head buried in his shoulders. Haha! what does one say to a 6'9" art major when he tell you he likes the singing, piano playing rapper in tight pants? Right you are, sir!

the few i suckered in:

i sold some merch and managed to get through the whole night drink free despite several offers to liquor me up. my voice was still a little hoarse but i was holding up alright. i could see that i might have to keep this sobriety thing going if i wanted to retain my top notes and breath control. i wanted that, so i was prepared to stay dry. even without the usual liquid courage, i decided i was going to be a nice guy and tell the opener i thought was the best that he did a great job. Now, you all know how nice guys finish.

so, i walk up to this dude in his giant, 1994, fall out of a plane and survive pants and say, "hey, man... you were really good tonight. you can spit." that was my first mistake. instead of saying thanks and acting humbled that the headliner came up and told him he was great, he unloaded on me with his personal philosophy about how only the metaphysical, lyrical, verbal and such and so forth could lead you to such excellence.

Standard issue metaphysical uniform:

alright, i thought, lemme offer some helpful live performance hints. i even put it in a sugary coating... "i'd love to see you really go for it and give some emotion to the performance. you'd be unstoppable like that," i say. this was untrue. he would have been better, not invincible, but i thought if i laid it on thick he'd give less attitude and more gratitude. Anyway, he peers at me through these dead blue-grey eyes and reaches his fingertips in my direction saying, “yeah, well, the reason there were more people watching my set than yours is that you don’t know what people in Spokane wanna see. You have to give them just the raw blah blah blah (I’m paraphrasing here). They don’t wanna see you dancing around and getting all into it and blah..” With a serious face and tone this guy tells me this. Unfuckingbelievable. Some of you probably want to know this friendly bastard’s name. well, fuck that. I gave that kid all he’s gonna get and he more or less spat in my face while he handed me his CD. Sometimes I think I deserve it for being naïve enough to expect that you get back what you give. This is not a universally true maxim. Sometimes it just happens to work out and people get all fired up like see… give good energy, get good energy. What happens when life shows you the complete douchebag that gets everything he or she wants? Crack open a copy US Weekly now and then and see what I mean. No! You dicks! I don’t read US Weekly… anymore! Don’t laugh at me. My ex used to leave stacks of that trashy rag in the bathroom. That’s all for today. Bozeman, MT tomorrow.