6/28
Hit the amazing Pancake House in Birmingham for breakfast, then haded down to Atlanta. Pascal, Lauren, Kyle, and Therese went to see a new Balthrop baby, leaving Michael, Jason, Andrew, Josh, Annie, Bernie, and myself in the van. Got a little lost getting into the city, but found everything alright. Really awesome gig at Eyedrum, doubling as an art opening. BIG stage, got to move around a little. Mike O was there, which was nice, he'd helped build a smail city which was going to be burned while Balthrop played "Explode"... which quickly developed into a pagan ritual as we danced around the fire and made up new songs. By the end of the night, Chris McFarland was sherriff of the town, Mike O was tired, we barely got a hotel (lauren, michael, andrew, and kyle stayed with lauren's old college friend), and pascal had barbecue sauce all over himself. tough gig to beat. ho ho.
6/29
woke up and swam in a tiny pool. this hotel kinda sucked. the waffle house REALLY sucked. the waitress did nothing but keep talking about how much she had to do... drove up to huntsville, icked up some jameson on the way. tried to find some food, met up with nick and muffin, finally found something that was open. headed over to the gig, Flying Monkey Arts Center, a little theater in what appeared to be an artists' collective kinda thing carved out of an old factory.
turns out nick had turned all of his friends and all of their friends on to Balthrop, resulting in a giant mass of people in their early 20's dancing feverishly and singing along to all the songs (by giant mass, i mean like 80, which you know, 80 dancing and singing in a town you've never, as a band, stepped foot into? that's kinda giant...) peter wilm sat in on unrehearsed auxillary drums, and it was MINDBLOWING good.
afterwards we split up again, with peter, michael, lauren, pascal, and myself going over to nick's for an afterparty and the rest of the gang at a fine lady named Rita's, who played beautiful music. the afterparty turned into a sing along of songs off of pascal's first record, and some beatles tunes and heart tunes. crashed hard and did not sleep well.
6/30
woke, gathered my laundry, and headed over to Rita's for brunch and rendezvous. Next was Nashville. I did not feel well at all all day, and was kinda bummed for it. spent a lot of time pre gig with my head on a table, between the coffeehouse and the theater upstairs where we were playing. went to an instore for some fellow whose name i can't spell and am too tired to look up, but he was really really good. i sat outside, couldn't handle the crowd and it was too packed to do any shopping.
two songs into the set i caught my second wind, felt like i was sweating out whatever was eating me. had a great salad afterwards, and stayed at allison's house (friend of andrew)... this place was like a museum of everything awesome. antique 50's toys, glasses, sparkly ceilings, empire strikes back blanket, imac playing old country... totally blissed out. slept well.
7/1
on to asheville, via... shit, can't remember the town. but it was between nashville and the great smoky mountains. stopped at a music store, got some subway subs, and headed into the state park. some folks swam. i ate and took pictures. started to not feel so hot.
made it to asheville late, but still with time as it turns out. GORGEOUS town. had a couple beers, ate a wrap, still didn't feel right. konked in the van for an hour, missed hope and anchor who i heard were amazing, and awoke just in time to try to piss (those people in that line were grumpy...) and put my horn together. felt totally discombobulated, the wake and play like that. heard the gig the next day though, sounded good.
some couple on the sidewalk outside the club looked like they were gonna fuck. weird. the hotel was a half a mile away, which was awesome.
7/2
woke up, swam. got breakfast at the place we ate the night before, rosetta's. awesome. had a couple hours to spare so we split up, did some wandering and shopping. i bought some records and some buttons. saw a painting some kid did of J Mascis, that was awesome. got on the road to chapel hill, drove through a cherokee reservation. like a country within a country. fuck you andrew jackson, you're everything that's wrong with this country.
made it to chapel hill and got some mediterranean food (rapidly becoming my favorite..) played at the nightlight, which was a bookstore venue. fun times, drank some molson. got punchy, as it was the last gig of the tour.
drove 3 hours, very late, to richmond VA to shave off some of the next day's travel time. good thing we did.
7/3
slept in a bed by myself. went swimming. had awesome food at a diner in richmond on 3rd and main. and then hit traffic that turned a 6 hour drive into 11. we had a nice meal stop, though, and i ruminated on how much fun i had eating with these people all the time, and how much i love them. made it home, feeling like a big gay hippy.

the saga continues july 19th at joes pub....