St. Louis, Chicago, Milwaukee


So after staying an extra day in Colombia and getting hooked up with some free beer/jacuzzi action by the owner of the hotel, we decide it is time to disengage from the world of truck stops and cheap motels and wi-fi hotspots and dive bars and cramped floor space and the late night scramble for suitable sleeping arrangements. Even though we all loved The Regency--we sort of turned it into our own little makeshift Chateau Marmont or Chelsea Hotel traveling artist squat--it was time to get in touch with nature. While Dana stayed behind with the Savannah squad, the rest of the Milwaukee contingent headed toward St. Louis in search of a campsite relatively close to I-70, since gas is still so fucking ridiculous that any jaunt much more than ten miles is just not worth it. I was prepared to set up shop inside one of those curlicue off-ramps as long as it had adequate coverage and enough shit to burn, but we actually ended up finding a state park with next to no people in it. No people, but about a billion ticks and chiggers and mosquitoes and god knows what else.

Immediately upon setting up Rap Camp my guts decide today is a good day to go ahead and get all riotous on me and expel any and all remaining garbage accumulated from three weeks of gas-station cuisine and near-constant whiskey consumption. The local yokel working the park is asking us questions and I cant take it anymore..."Um, where's the bathroom?...three sites away?...nope, cant make it, where the fuck is that toilet paper we stole from the hotel!!!" So off I go into the Missouri countryside in search of a large tree with what feels like a pot of Colombian dark roast brewing in my lower intestine. I made it like twenty paces from the campsite and there was no more debating the issue. Naked as an animal and sick as a junkie, hoping to god that some hiker doesn't pop up out of nowhere and witness what was easily one of the most uncomfortable ten minutes of my life. A few hits from the rapidly-diminishing stash and I am feeling somewhat settled--why is this shit not legal again? no one can give me ONE good reason, all arguments for traffic safety and gateway-drug nonsense pale in comparison to the sheer relief marijuana provides at times like these--and so we head off in search of a grocery store to spend our last money.

After much haggling over which way to go, we finally find a store outside of Montgomery City, which is an ill-suited name for a place that still has places to tie up your horse and feels like a scene from Deadwood. How do people live out here? The song "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere" by Neil Young keeps popping into my head and every line of the song feels like a voiceover for this strange little picaresque movie we are all living out in real time. We buy way too much food and CJ is pissed because the backward fucks at the grocery store wont let him buy a jug of wine with an out-of-state ID. That's right, there's six of us, and we all hatched a plan to make fake Wisconsin ID's just to pick up some cheap wine and drink it with the local underage ruffians behind the Citgo. Kid Millions, aka Johnny-on-the-spot with the wit and wisdom, summed it all up perfectly when he told the manager "If your miserable fucking town doesn't want our money that's cool" and she promptly sold us a case of Busch Light. Ya-fucking-hoo. We get back to Rap Camp and start the fire--everyone has just as many opinions on fire-starting as they do on directions--and we eat like kings. Seriously, I wish I had the pictures to insert here right now, perhaps I'll post a pictoral blog once CJ sorts through the 10,000+ shots he took, but yeah, sooooooo much food and overall hobo-goodness. I hope I don't have Lyme disease. Coincidentally, this was the day that my mug was plastered on the front of The Onion and I got all these text messages giving me shit about how much of a "celebrity" I am nowadays. When I woke up smelling like a hippie I had 70 cents or so scattered on the floor of my tent and I felt like someone had kicked me in the spine. Diana Ross never had to put up with this shit.

Rappetite For Destruction Note: one of our tour mates who will remain nameless for legal reasons got in a car accident and broke his leg while we were holed up in Colombia. For a while it was hard to find out the severity of his injuries and it felt really ominous, but in the end it seems he's gonna be all good. Welcome to the I-Saw-My-Bone-Sticking-Through-The-Skin Club brother. Save me some pills lol.

The Savannah Squad shows up around one in the afternoon and we kick up the fire to grill up the remainder of the feast. Chef Boy-R-Dee Macaroni N' Cheese in a can for breakfast anyone? Just throw it on the fire and see what happens. Shit looks radioactive and my stomach begs me for the love of all creation NOT to eat any of it. I grudgingly comply. Shut down Rap Camp and we all make a blood oath tho return to this same site twenty years from now like the characters in Stephen King's "It". Off to the radio show in St. Louis before the gig, luckily it is by far the shortest distance we have had to travel to a show on the whole tour, but nobody has any weed left and everybody is really starting to feel the gravitational pull of our beds as we work our way closer to home. Not much talking, which is good because when we get to Riverfrontradio.com we all start jabbering like lunatics and behaving like sailors on shore leave. DJ Mahf is a mad cool dude and I can't believe I never realized that his brother is the artist Jim Mahfood. Mahf...Mahfood...ahhh, thought some of those paintings looked familiar. The other half of The Balls radio show, Matthias from the Earthworms crew, shows up right as the show is kicking off and he has a taste for bourbon like the rest of us, so we polish off an 80-pack and a yet another bottle of Jim Beam while posting scribbling down shout-outs to our friends watching us on the webcam. Fielded our first real, live call-in request from somebody who copped the album last year and got to play our new joint with Sadat X. Shit was all good, but we left the station around 1030 completely wasted. Well, I was in bad shape at least, and the 3 or 4 tumblers of straight bourbon that I put down at the venue didn't really help either. Tanner (aka Blu Collar from Savannah) and I swapped horror stories about who in our respective crews is the most annoying in the van and I have to say it was nice to see someone besides Shemp and I screaming at each other. Our set was a disaster, and I'll admit it, shit was mostly my fault. About 10 minutes before show time, and after an hour of some of the worst freestyling you will ever hear from me, I decided it was a good time to pass out in the van. I am shaken awake by Shemp and 1L? moments later and I honestly didn't even realize where I was. They do the fireman-carry with me to the stage, punch me in the face upon request, and put a tall Red Bull and vodka in my hand. Full steam ahead! I flub lines like crazy, Dana goes off on the crowd, I have no idea what is happening, but somehow we end up selling like 40 bucks worth of merch after the whole sordid display. I will never understand the merch hustle, there is simply no way to predict when you'll sell shit and when you'll stand there like an idiot for an hour after the show like a carnival barker with the worst game on the midway. Big ups to DJ Who? for helping with the gas and peace to J for letting half the crew stay in his spot and clearing the way with the Walgreen's manager so that three of us didn't get towed and wake up in a salvage yard.

KHB almost ceased to exist by the end of the night. I almost fired myself. Five hours of awful, construction and rain-soaked Illinois driving and we lose Shemp for one night so he can go to his son's graduation in Port Washington. Normally, I would much rather do a show than sit through pomp and circumstance after nine hours spent in a car, but I can safely say that the majority of us we're jealous when we saw him driving off in the direction of home. Only 8 hours or so mates, tonight we dine in hell! Even though the money was slim, the second show in Chicago more than made up for the previous week's disaster. Big crowd, enthusiastic response, me and Dana absolutley murdered the set, Kid Millions and I clicked on his set better than any other night, Dope Sandwich was fucking on point, and the house was packed with familiar faces from home and elsewhere. The only wrinkle in the evening came when Joe from Oxfunk nearly decapitated some dude for talking shit to his girl Maggie, who was running the door while this dickhead was running his mouth. And I quote, "What'd you say motherfucker? I will end your world!" Hahahaha, Joe says "Suck My Dick" really well too, somebody give this man a TV show already for christ's sake.

Four hours later and we were home. I'm not ashamed to say it, but I felt choked up. A strange sensation of wanting to sob-laugh-scream welled up and images of hugging my bed seemed so real I could smell my room. I kissed the ground outside my building.

Finally, thank you to EVERYBODY who came out to Mad Planet on Saturday night and made it one of the best hip-hop shows I have ever been a part of. For real, I want every show that ANYBODY does in Milwaukee this summer to be so much fun. Rowdy, rowdy audience, yelling out lyrics to new songs and shit, damn, you don't know how good that feels. The Dope Sandwich crew loves all of you for putting your hands in the air for a group you've probably never heard before, not to mention the fact that we were able to send them home with a nice chunk of money for all that they did for us down south. House of M destroyed the stage yo, just keeps getting better and better round here. Deadbeat holding it down as always, expect to see more of Kid Millions, him and me in the future. Oxfunk doing two shows in a row?! Yes yes ya'll. As for me, I am taking a break, see you on the other side of the summer.

Rappetite satisfied.