Touch Fuzzy, Get Dizzy

Ok so its been a really long time since we posted any significant material. So, i guess this post will be functional more than anything else, just to get caught up to date and move on.

We left San Jose and went to Vasilia, CA to catch the octopus project in concert that night. They actually remembered us from the lollapalooza interview and were super nice. We spoke to Josh and Yvonne for a pretty long while, and when we told them we were going to Austin, they gave us a list of things to do and said to call them if we needed anything. The show was amazing and i got the whole thing on film. Yvonne let me play her theremin. All in all, an awesome night and around 1am we started the drive towards monument valley (10+ hours).

Let me just say that monument valley and the navajo reservation in general is one of the most depressing things ive ever seen. The landscape is beautiful and looks exactly the same as in all the John Ford westerns. But the people… the poverty, desperation, it was a lot to handle. Every time we would arrive at a scenic spot there would be some people selling poorly made jewelry or other trinkets, which no one bought (also, it was exactly the same stuff at every vendor). There was a sign at John Ford’s Point advertising “$2.00 for photo on horse) with this tired old horse being sat on hundreds of times a day in front of what was supposed to be one of the best spots in the park. It was pretty distracting, to say the least. On the way there, we saw a series of signs leading up to a “trading post” that said “Friendly Indians… Nice Indians… jewelry, souvenirs”. Nice Indians? That left me a little baffled. The worst by far however was this little ramshackle stand on the outskirts of monument valley. A blue stand with a big yellow sign that read “Sacred Monument Horse Tour” and featured info about paying to visit this sacred sight, complete with visa and mastercard logos indicating they accepteed those credit cards… in exchange for visiting their sacred monument… this just seemed really wrong for a number of reasons. We had planned to stay the night but decided against it because the place was too depressing, not to mention that the campground where we would be tenting was surrounded by buildings with barred up windows. Generally if people need to use iron bars to keep people out of their businesses and homes it doesnt seem like a good idea to be unconscious inside a thin piece of plastic in the middle of the night.

We left and headed for Carlsbad Caverns, stopping to sleep in Albuqurque at a motel that smelled like a mix of stale smoke and urine. We left the next morning and made it to Carlsbad and we saw the Caverns the next day. All in all it was pretty boring, though to be fair we didnt get to go caving inside the better parts of the cave because they only offered those tours on saturday and it was sunday. That night we saw the bats leaving out of the cave mouth at dusk which was pretty cool. We left for Texas the next day.

The drive across west Texas seemed like it took forever but i guess it really wasnt that bad. Just the monotony of the landscape makes it boring and tiresome. We got to Dallas and stayed with my friend David for a few days, in which we drank beer, watched the olympics, relaxed, read comic books and ate real food. HIs parents took us to Fogo de Chao, an unbelievably nice brazilian restaurant, and i can honestly say it was probably the best meal of my life. We saw Dealey Plaza, where Kennedy was shot, and that was really morbid and weird (I dont know what i was expecting though). The conspiracy theorists were out selling their dvds and stuff and some actually had interesting and worthwhile info. Others however, were just bat shit crazy. Dallas didnt have much else to offer as its primarily a business town, but the visit was incredibly enjoyable. So, thanks to David and his parents for being so nice to us and letting us mooch off of them for 3 days.

We hit Austin next and spent a few days there doing things off the list that Josh and Yvonne from the octopus project had provided us with. Saw a concert, ate Tex-Mex, saw the bats flying out from under the Congress Bridge, visited the natural springs. The list was concise and excellent, a great bit of advise from locals on what to see and not see. The one time i didnt listen to them we payed for it… we were told to avoid east 6th street but we went to go see a movie there anyway. When we went into the movie, everything was normal. When we came out, it looked like there had been a spontaneous decision to hold Mardi Gras tonight and in Austin, entirely localized on this one street. There were drunk people and mounted police filling the streets (i saw a man with a blow up sex doll standing in the middle of the road) and we had to wait for the crowd to thin out before we could leave. When i finally managed to get my car out of the parking spot, i had to weave through drunk people at 3mph, while some drunk guy followed behing me banging on my trunk. Thats what you get for not listening to the advise of locals (i cant stress enough how useful of a resource this is, as our travel guide book has let us down many, many times). Austin is definitely one of the best spots we visited so far and a place i will definitely be going back to in the near future.

We hit San Antonio the next day and it sucked pretty bad. Granted we only saw the touristy downtown stuff, but even that was bad compared to other touristy downtown stuff in other cities. After leaving downtown, we headed out to the suburbs and saw the hospital where i was born. That was kind of weird, but interesting also i guess.

We left that night for New Orleans, having found out that our friend Bret was actually in town and we would be able to stay with him. We’re still in New Orleans and have been doing the various things this city has to offer for the last 2 days (eating po boys, getting very drunk, visiting Bourbon Street, going to spots frequented by Tulane kids). Last night we went to Harrah’s Casino and i lost $150 playing blackjack. In retrospect i couldnt believe myself. As strapped for cash as i am, i threw away all that money. Earlier in the trip i ate nothing but hard boiled eggs and pb&j for three days to save about $20. Now i threw away $150 in an hour and a half on nothing. This addictive personality of mine gets the better of me sometimes and even having lost all that money i sat there and thought to myself that i should take my last $50 and try to win my money back. I think that me and gambling dont mix well. So no more gambling for me… at least until the next time someone suggests going to the casino. So now its Thursday the 28th and everyone here in New Orleans is preparing for the arrival of Hurricane Gustov. Today is one day before the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and its weird to think about what happened here and what could happen again come Monday. Driving around here, there are still some remnants of Katrina, some houses still bearing their spray painted symbols inidcating the number of dead inside when people finally came to help. The mood here is strange, kids are making their exit plans, and Elliot and I are sort of glad to be leaving when we are. I think I may have a stomach flu, my two day nausea and headache leading me to believe that thats the case. Hopefully it clears up on its own. We have our last day in New Orleans today to do all the debaucherous shit we can handle, then off to St. Louis tomorrow for a Ratatat concert. All is well relatively, the trip is winding down in a way (Elliot only has one week left) and we’re just trying to make the best of everything. Thank you to Bret for letting us stay with him, and also for keeping us pretty much constantly inebriated.

That’s all for now. Hope the recap was a worthwhile read.

-jason.

recap too difficult. days fun. trip fun. tired. don’t know if im still human. my life is better than yours. in new orleans staying w brett. byebye

We had to make up for a pretty long stretch of time in the last blog post, and consequently we missed a lot of little things. So I’ve decided to provide a quick bullet point list of some of the highlights and better details. Here goes:

-The campground we stayed at on the first night in Yellowstone charged us to take a shower. It was $3.50. Each.

-Elliot had a profound experience while we were in the woods: shitting in a hole in the ground while scared to death of bear attacks, with toilet paper in one hand and bear mace in the other, while it was raining. He really had to evaluate what place he was at in his life.

-Direct quote from me: “Let’s splurge a little tonight and stay at a Holiday Inn”. This would be funnier if I wasn’t serious at the time… no, that makes it even funnier. This is a testament to our hobo lifestyle.

-The York Hotel where scenes of the movie “Vertigo” were filmed is being renamed “The Vertigo Hotel”, to join the ranks of Fisherman’s wharf and chowder in a bread bowl as the biggest touristy wastes of time in San Francisco. Sad. But hey, I guess that’s progress.

-We had been in San Francisco for less than 10 minutes when a bird took an enormous shit on my windshield, about one inch out of reach of the wiper blades… it was that kind of morning.

-We didn’t realize that the Gumball 3000 (see here for explanation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gumball_3000#2008) was going to be in San Francisco when we arrived. We traded in bikers for douche bags in gaudy Ferraris with gonorrhea infested my size Barbies on the hood. We got a raw deal on that one.

-The Monterey Bay Aquarium is a pretty amazing place (one of my favorites so far). The aquarium is on “Cannery Row”, the same one of John Steinbeck fame. The building that used to be the sardine packing plant is now a strip mall (insert pithy remark), complete with Reebok factory outlet store, McDonalds, and a place called “First Awakenings” where we ate breakfast. Much to my dismay, Rachel Ray’s photo hung behind the counter with a note marking this place as one of her “$40 a day” selections (bitch doesn’t tip, that’s how she affords to eat at these places. I’m living on $15/day, I do tip. This was the only meal I could afford that day. And I even went over budget.) First Awakenings also employed one of the biggest douches I have ever seen, in the form of some nauseously cheery blond High Schooler in a blue Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts. His constant shit eating grin made me want to punch him in the face, but his complete job satisfaction in this shit hole is what made me hate him. When Elliot asked to throw away a piece of paper behind the counter and his reply was “Let’s see if you can make it from there, slugger” (ok, I added the word “slugger”) this was just beating a dead horse. I guess I was still stuck in the mode of thinking that Cannery Row was the setting for one of America’s great novels, or at least a novel by one of its great classic novelists. Instead I found the same shit that everything everywhere is turning into (Buy N’ Large, WALL-E you were right!) and maybe the biggest surprise was that I was surprised about the whole thing. But hey, I guess that’s progress…

-Direct quote from Elliot in San Francisco: “This place is so… gay…” To be fair, we were in Castro at the time, the gay district of San Francisco, and there were enormous rainbow flags everywhere. We both liked the city as a whole, and the gay comment wasn’t a reflection on the city in any way other than the represented sexual preferences of its people. But yeah, in that way, it was pretty gay.

-I saw Rodin’s “The Thinker” and decided it was a piece of shit. Rodin isn’t even a very good sculptor (if you want my detailed explanation why, ask me). This is one of the most famous sculptures of all time and I thought it sucked. Famous art does not equal good art. Although the Frida Kahlo exhibit we saw the next day was pretty amazing.

-Hannah Choe was a wonderful host. She showed us around and with the exception of a few restaurants being closed and the Egyptian Museum (which was Lonely Planet’s idea anyway) we had a great time. Also, thanks to Yong for letting us crash at his place.

That’s the end of that chapter.

-jason.

(Next will be new material including the most depressing blog post yet)

yo. currently caught in traffic because of a ridiculous truck fire so i thought i’d catch up on this blog.
ooook so lets see…today is the 15th and our last post covered up till the 5th…. So what’s happened since then? a lot. so we camped at a campground in yellowstone national park the day after the puggle story and that went well enough. we got to drive around the park and see some beautiful scenery and animals like deer, bison, elk, coyote, and a bald eagle. then the next day, on the 7th, is when the trip took a turn for the worse….like the ground opened up below us and swallowed us into the fiery chasms of hell. like every window in the house suddenly imploding in slow motion sending you gored and flying limply into a wall neck first. so what happened? well we pretty much decided to go camping into the backwoods of yellowstone. sounds nice enough right? wrong. the guy who booked our campsite for us was apparently an expert hiker of some sort and decided to send us to his “favorite spot” aka the most highly frequented grizzly bear area in yellowstone (thanks a million Volunteer Park Ranger Maclam). as if i wasn’t terrified enough, we were given several pamphlets saying that the place we were headed was so highly frequented by bears that we should assume they are in very close vicinity even when we can’t see them. so picture this: us hiking with backpacks equal to the weight of two midgets(very.very.heavy.) on tough terrain and being absolutely terrified the entire time. whenever jason led it was like watching a clint eastwood western due to the fact that one hand was always on his bear mace that hung at his side. oh yea, we each bought a can of bear mace ($45 each), it’s apparently more effective than a gun against bears and works exactly how it sounds.

so on this hike we are clapping and yelling “yoooooooo” and whatever else we can think of to scare bears off of the trail ahead of us. apparently, the majority of bear attacks occur because a person will sneak up on a bear accidentally leading to a surprised and unhappy bear. so after our 5+ hour hike of yelling and clapping we finally get to our campsite. now i’m no primadonna and i’m certainly no little pampered b*@T(H but that place sucked BALLS. i don’t know what exactly i was expecting…ok maybe i do…a nice big tree i can sit under and relax while reading a book or perhaps sit in meditative silence and enjoy nature….what i got? a tiny desolate patch of land with one tree that we were to use to hang up our food. oh yes. another bear fact = you have to hang up your food really high on a tree at all times unless you’re using it because it WILL attract bears. we were also not allowed to make a fire at that campsite for god knows why. the constant threat of bears as well as starvation and exhaustion was starting to wear on our spirits so we decided to cheer ourselves up by fishing by the lake and catching some dinner. so we go to the lake and wade in and……lo and behold our fishing rods break along with our spirits. we sit down on the shore and jason starts to go into a tirade that sounded something like this: “this whole thing SUCKS, there’s mosquitoes EVERYWHERE, it’s gonna RAIN, we can’t CATCH ANYTHING..” then he abruptly stops because he suddenly notices the 3 enormous leeches stuck to his feet. HAHAHA. sorry, i guess it’s funny now that i’m in an air conditioned car eating oreos.

anyways, we pretty much decided on the spot that although we were planning on spending two nights out there that we were hauling ass and getting out of there first thing in the morning. so we decided to eat our cans of campbell chicken soup and get to bed. of course things didn’t work out as planned (seeing the pattern yet?). jason had bought some water purification tablets that we used on the lake water and i guess it worked even though it tasted like pool water. so we used this water on our campbell soup….unfortunately it had some fucked up reaction with the metal can that the soup was in and the water turned black. mmmm nothing like having black chicken soup. after eating we had to wash our dishes away from our campsite because that will also attract bears and that was probably when my fear of bears reached its pinnacle. something about washing dishes in dead dark except for a tiny little lamp in the middle of nowhere with bears looming ready to eat me bc i smell like chicken soup really scared me. so we finally finish washing the dishes and hang up our stuff in a tree and get into our tent. then it starts to rain. we were pondering earlier in the day whether the tent was waterproof or not. it wasn’t. i was fed up at that point and just went to sleep while jason was taping garbage bags on the inside of our tent. about 5 minutes after i fall asleep i suddenly wake up screaming “YOOOOOOOOO”. i guess even in dead sleep my body wanted to ward off those damned bears. so we wake up the next morning and ate nothing but a granola bar or two and hauled ass out of there. i don’t know if it was bc we were so weak from not eating or the constant wear of fear on our bodies…probably a culmination of everything…but that hike back was about 10x harder. to be fair, the place we were hiking along was beautiful and we hit some really magical spots..we also caught a bald eagle in full flight so that was amazing too…of course its hard to enjoy these things to the fullest when you half expect a bear to jump out of a bush and maul your face.

anyway on the way back we ran into a yellowstone patrol officer on the trail and she asked us some questions about our camera and layed down the law by saying that we needed a permit to use any of  the stuff we filmed inside of the park. she let us keep our footage luckily but we just can’t use it for our documentary anymore. yea…i know. so we FINALLY get back to our car, unshowered, with possible spinal damage from the weight of our packs, black water in our bellies, over 20 mosquito bites on each limb, and completely shot nerves from bears. naturally, i immediately pound a delicious cold beer from the cooler in our car… best. beer. ever. with that horrifying episode over we decide to just head straight for san francisco. as soon as we got out of the park we decided to make a stop at a pizza/pc lan store owned by europeans in montana. it was pretty surreal to be eating pizza with a bunch of chinese tourists while watching the opening ceremonies of the olympics(awesome) and doodling on a computer when only hours earlier we were worried about getting mauled by bears.

so from there we drove overnight to san francisco and boy was that a journey in itself(12+ hour drive). we still hadn’t showered at this point since before our hike into the backwoods so we were dirty as hell..all i can say is red bull and cigarettes go a long way. we finally got into san francisco that morning and drove around a bit before deciding we would get a place to stay in san jose for the night. we did so and got really drunk in the hotel as a sort of convalescence if you will. i felt like a king in my hotel room with things like alcohol, shower, bed, tv…man it was great. so the next day we checked out and headed to jason’s friend hannah’s house. we split up our time between there and san francisco for about a week. in that time we checked out several spots, haight being my favorite, where we bumped heads with travis mccoy of gym class heroes and keith buckley of every time i die. random. the things worth mentioning in this time are the awesome aquarium we went to, numerous museums, some better than others (frida kahlo exhibit > egyptian museum). that’s all obviously in a nutshell but it was nice, we drank a lot, explored a lot and basically just got our heads on straight again after the whole yellowstone fiasco. today is the 15th and we effectively left this morning…we would’ve left yesterday if the car hadn’t died, got towed, and gotten a new starter ($500+)…ouch jason’s wallet.  we’re now currently in the car headed for vasilia where we’re going to see the octopus project again for only 5 bucks. awesoome. i am eating oreos and candy while typing this post and i’m still stuck in this horrible traffic after this ridiculously long blog. ok so i guess that pretty much catches up everything.

-el

(written on 15th, posted on 17th)

After the tornado scare (see previous post) the rest of the drive wasn’t horrible, and we made it to South Dakota with relative ease by driving through the night. Since I’m generally the sleepless one, I usually do the graveyard shift driving (let’s say, from 4am-9am or so). When you drive at this time you get to appreciate things like the sunrise, which I’m never, ever awake for in normal life. Driving due west also means that the sun rises directly behind you, and seeing it in the rearview mirror gave me a satisfying feeling, but I can’t figure out why.

Our plan was to roll into Rapid City, SD and maybe unwind for a few hours, maybe spend the night and then drive the other 7 or so hours to Yellowstone. Well plans changed when we got to Rapid City and there was actually nothing there. I guess I was expecting Rapid City to be, I dunno, a city? But as far as I could tell there were just farms, farm equipment shops, and weird little tourist sites. I made an executive decision that we would keep driving.

Then there were the bikers. What we were only vaguely aware of when heading towards SD is that this week was Sturgis Biker Week, where thousands of bikers meet up in Sturgis, SD for a week-long motorcycle festival (lonely planet says up to half a million bikers may attend Sturgis each year). This meant that there were bikers everywhere. Everywhere. I’ve definitely never seen so much leather chaps or man-ponytails in my life. And they gave me a little bit of an uneasy feeling. I guess I really don’t know much about bikers, just what tv teaches you, so I had mixed feelings of curiosity and fear. I kept my distance for the most part, not that any of them wanted anything to do with me anyway since I drove a car with New York plates. I cant stress enough the alienation that this brings, people really seem to react negatively. Maybe like wearing a swastika in a synagogue. No, not really. More like wearing a huge confederate flag t shirt in New York (excluding upstate). It just marks you as that kind of person, take that as you will.

Now, lemme tell you ‘bout Cody, Wyoming. Apparently this is a town where Buffalo Bill Cody hung out while he was in Wyoming, so they named the town after him at some point and turned it into the largest piece of crap tourist town I have ever seen. Complete with nightly rodeo, old fashioned trading post and “old west miniature village”, it was like Disneyland ate the movie Tombstone and then took an enormous shit in this spot. Old timey wooden buildings with neon store fronts made us both gag, and it was a relief to drive right through the place without stopping on the way to Yellowstone.

So, couple hours later we made it to Yellowstone and after buying park entrance the Ranger told us that the park was completely full (really, full? It’s a pretty big place, from what I understand…) and that we would have to stay somewhere else tonight. Unfortunately, the only town within about two hours of The Eastern Park Entrance is… yeah, Cody.

Balls.

We drove back into town and looked for a motel for the night. Unfortunately, the Sturgis bikers were really interested in hokey wild west towns and all the rooms everywhere were booked. All of them. But we didn’t discover this until after driving to about 15 motels and walking in to ask for rooms. After unsuccessfully trying the Holiday Inn (complete with cow skull behind the reception desk) we were both pissed off and tired. With no place to stay, nowhere to eat and no options we both agreed on one thing: we missed Chicago. Things there had been the sort of magical, wacky adventure I had wished for, but this was now the sort of stressful and wandering trip my more practical side had counted on. We both reiterated how much we wished we were still in Chicago until we were both sick of hearing it, then after struggling for another hour, we found a campsite outside of town and stayed there for the night. We ate at Subway, set up our tent and tried to sleep.

Elliot fell asleep pretty quickly, but I was feeling restless as usual and stayed awake for a while. In the middle of the night, a car pulled up to the tent site next to ours and a man and woman, who sounded married and middle aged, got out of the car and started to set up a tent. I never actually saw them, but it was pretty easy to get an idea of what they were like and what was going on from the noise they were making. The two of them had come camping, brought their two dogs and were now struggling with the difficulties of dealing with both of those things at once. The dogs (there were 2 of them) were pretty upset, after having been dragged to an unfamiliar location and then made to sleep in the car while the two people slept in their tent.

“Be quiet!! Dogs, shut up!! Shut. Up!” the woman yelled at the dogs in one of those whisper yells that clearly showed she wanted to frighten the dogs into listening to her, but not embarrass herself in front of her new camping neighbors (i.e. us). The two dogs kept on barking, and the woman lost her temper after awhile. Then she opened the car door, rustled about for a second, and screamed:

“I’M GOING TO BEAT YOU, PUGGLE!!”

…at the time I found this to be pretty hilarious, and I laughed about it again later when I recounted the story to Elliot. I mean, the whole thing was absurd as hell, and to cap it off with such a ridiculous exclamation was just too funny. And puggle? Basically the funniest dog breed name it could have been, except for maybe “labradoodle”.

But later on I started feeling kind of bad. After all, it wasn’t the dog’s fault that it was so upset. What did the woman expect? She takes it to the middle of nowhere and leaves it locked in the car, while she and her husband sleep in a tent about 5 feet away, teasing the dog with the prospective comfort of its owners company. Not only that, but even the funniest part of the whole thing, the fact that she had called it “puggle” was kind of sad too. She hadn’t even used the dog’s name, kind of reducing it to a blanket concept, or even a thing. It was like when a pimp yells at a hooker “Ima slap you, bitch!”. He doesn’t use her name, he calls her bitch to make it less personal, so it’ll be easier to actually go through with the threat when the time comes. This made me think that she was the type of person who would actually beat a dog, and I felt bad for this thing that I now felt kind of close to, even though I had only heard it, not seen it. I thought about all the things I maybe should have done, stepped in and told the woman to shut the hell up, that dogs don’t speak English but I definitely do so she was really just bothering me and not them. That it was her fault and she shouldn’t be mad at them. Just completely bitch her out, loud enough for everyone around us to hear. And then I would insult her by calling her “old lady” or even better yet “you bitch” or the even more unlikely but satisfying “you old bitch”. That way when I thought about the whole thing later I wouldn’t feel bad about it, because she would be, to me, just some old bitch.

-jason

(as if it wasnt obvious, this was me trying to be david sedaris. anyway, next time: Yellowstone.)

Fortunes certainly do change quickly. The last time we posted was about 5 days ago and things were going gangbusters. That is to say, we were having the best goddamn time of our lives. But then again, when you’re drinking free alcohol with Perry Farrell and seeing Radiohead and Broken Social Scene (and Girl Talk and Octopus Project and etc.) play for free its hard to not to be having an unbelievable time. And at the time it had all seemed too easy. A couple of carefully placed half-truths had earned us backstage access at one of the biggest festivals in America, doing things we formerly only wished we could do. “It can’t be this easy” was the mantra of the day. We joked back and forth that such good luck couldn’t last forever, karma would have to bite us in the ass eventually, and we would pay big time for having so much good fortune.

Sometimes it sucks to be so right…

We left Chicago on Monday afternoon heading towards Yellowstone National Park, which is in the northwest corner of Wyoming. The total drive is about 21 hours or so and we decided we would stop about half way in South Dakota and pick up the rest of the trip the next day. But before we could even get out of Illinois, Elliot and I noticed that the sky was starting to look strange. The color was a sickly sea foam sort of green, the kind of color you’re generally warned about in Earth Science class as a clear sign that the shit is about to go down. Thinking nothing of it, we drove on anyway. Then the rain started, first as a light shower. Then in sheets. Then in sheets blown sideways by the wind so thick that we could only see about 10 feet in front of the car. I noticed that a road sign nearby was shaking violently, more or less being ripped loose from its bolts. Then the wind picked up even more, and all I kept thinking of was that flying cow from the movie Twister and trying to remember all of the tornado survival skills I had picked up from tv (never stop under a bridge, lay in a ditch if you’re caught on the highway, an oncoming tornado sounds like a freight train barreling down on you).

At this point it seemed pretty obvious to get off the highway, so we pulled off into a truck stop and hid out inside. People had already started gathering inside the truck stop and there were maybe 15 or so of them sitting around when we walked in. The tv was playing the local weather, describing the current tornado warning in effect in the county which we happened to be in. They advised that the warning would be over in about 30 minutes or so, so we got comfortable and tried to wait it out. The tv then switched back to what had been on before the breaking weather bulletin, which happened to be American Gladiators (as if this situation needed to get any worse).

I started to get antsy as I usually do, so I decided to look around at the various products in the truck stop. A lot of the time these kind of places have some super wacky stuff, so I was pretty excited to venture around. I walked passed a Dale Earnhart Jr. commemorative clock and a pastel picture of Jesus with a light-up frame and sort of met eyes with a guy who was standing in the middle of the aisle. Since this was middle America, I took it that he would probably be friendly, considering that’s the going stereotype as I understand it (you know, New Yorkers are interesting but assholes, middle of the country folk are nice but boring). I looked up at him again, having diverted my gaze away from him earlier since eye contact with strangers is weird for me (another New York thing). Thinking it might be nice to kill some time talking to somebody, and the weather naturally being a relatable topic, I said to him

“Some crazy shit outside, huh?”

…

No answer. In fact, not only did he not answer, but he glared at me as if I had just punched his pregnant wife in the stomach. Maybe I just gave off that New York vibe that people seem to hate in those parts. Maybe he was just a dick. I don’t know, but in any case, lesson learned- follow the old New York adage: walk fast, look down at the floor and under no circumstance unless absolutely necessary do you talk to anyone you don’t know.

The rain kept on coming and the lighnting got progressvily heavier ( my dad would later tell me that he heard on the news there were over 100 strikes per hour). The wind passing under the awning for the gas pumps howled in that clichéd scary movie way, and it actually kind of freaked me out. Then the power went out. Just for a few seconds, but it made me really nervous. I wandered around the store again, this time looking for the best places to hide when the tornado ran us over (I think it was the “trucker’s only” tv lounge). I imagined what it would be like climbing out of the rubble, arm torn off at the shoulder but still cursing myself for having survived when so many of the other people didn’t make it (in your doom fantasies you never take into account the idea that you might be one of those people…)

I tried to look calm on the outside and was managing to do a decent job while I practiced my survivor’s speech in my head. We killed the rest of the time by staring out the window or playing arcade games. The rain lightened up, we got back in the car and kept driving. Behind the storm clouds, the sun had been setting and it was visible now, with the expansive nothingness of farm country revealing more of the sunset than I usually get to see. Then Elliot pointed out that there was a full rainbow to our right. A complete arch which, when you think about it, is something you don’t see too often outside of post cards and Lisa Frank trapper keepers. It was kind of nice, and I tried to take it as a sign (as little as I believe in that sort of thing) that hard times were over and it would be smooth sailing again, just like Chicago.

Sometimes, it sucks to be so fucking wrong…

-jason

(next entry: Sturgis Biker Week, the worst wild west town in the world, car troubles, and the absolute terror that was Yellowstone National Park.)

so we never made it back to our hotel or the bss show after lolla last night cause we opted for chicago night life. sweaty, dancing, loud music. stayed w alexs friend and woke up this morning w super hangover and headed back to lolla. greaaaat day to say the least. mark ronson probably impressed me the most…or maybe girl talk…who knows. i’m on a sonic high right now, tooooo much good stuff has been hitting my ear drums in a stream this weekend. feeling inspired. gonna get some drinks and play with some programs, hope everyones having good days. pz

-elliot

i figured this trip would probably be a test of wills, mostly in terms of operating on little to no sleep, food, or energy. well, yeah… day three of lolla was the trial by fire on those points. elliot already mentioned the drinking, the hangovers… i myself only caught about 2 hours of sleep and almost crashed and burned at the festival today until i napped on the lawn (an activity, which, i assume will be very repetitive on this trip) before seeing brazilian girls. highlights on the day? im looking over my pictures and the things worth mentioning are as follows: seeing the octopus project perfrom in all their wonderous glory, getting down to chromeo, gregg gillis (aka girl talk) rocking one of my bandanas (the picture is a MUST SEE, made me so happy, and i’ll share it as soon as i figure out a way to conveniently upload photos either here or elsewhere), me losing elliot in the girl talk mob and freaking out about not being able to find him, and hating on kanye. sure, his light show was impressive (you may remember the bonnaroo fiasco) but his set was lame and he’s a wack mc. he’s the guy i loved to hate. and it was great… though his sunglasses were pretty awesome (the fact that his eyewear was the most impressive part of the performance says a lot, i think). well, to sum it up lolla weekend was almost surreal, and its definitely set the bar high for thr rest of the trip. many side notes and anecdotes later, i wrap up this weekends story, for now at least. im not quite sober and i plan on being less so before cleaning two days worth of grant park filth off of me and heading to bed. more to come soon, probably more details about the weekend which i will write up while im sitting in the car on the 1000+ mile drive to wyoming. thats all for now though…

-jason.

soooo, let me start by saying this, today was perfect. you’ll have to excuse this blog btw, i’m exhausted and bill cosby is being crazy on the tv. anyways, so we woke up this morning @ about 830 and got our stuff together and went straight to lolla[alooza. parking was relatively easy to find blahbeeblahbeeblah let me get to the part i want to talk about. so since we have press passes, we have free access and get to hang out in the media area which is amazing. let me explain why…unlimited FREE supply of the following: beer, wine, food(chicken,pizza,candy) and water…which, if you’ve been to an outdoor concert, will understand is as valuable as gold. first band we got to check out was the black lips which is like my favorite group. not a bad way to start the day. afterwards we hung out in the media area drinking some beers and waiting for our oncoming interviews. first up we had octopus project…we were pretty nervous and weren’t exactly great at concealing it a la jason dropping his extremely expensive camera. they were suuuuuper nice and chill and they gave us a pretty good interview…unfortunately we think the audio is clouded out by some shit band that was playing on a nearby stage. next up we had the black lips, which to say the least was a golden moment for me. it went pretty much as expected…excessive cursing, beer drinking, chicken eating, jared saying “god is a fucking faggot” just so we would have to edit it……in other words it was eeeeexcellent. a bunch of them ended up getting drunk and passing out on the couch afterwards which i found hilarious and appropriate. our last interview was with the super tiny and cute “Chi”, the drummer of The Go Team. We love the go team. a lot. she definitely gave us the best material and i think it’ll come out good for our documentary..it was really inspiring talking to her and it was probably my favorite moment of the day….did i mention shes adorable? lets see…….oh yes! i almost forgot. just for a random funny moment, if you’ve ever seen that episode of rob and big where they meet that guy that travels the country giving away free ice cream, well we got ice cream from him today while chilling on a couch in the media section…i had one of those moments where he gave me ice cream and then i just stopped and went….”wait were you on rob and big” “yes” “oh….you’re THAT GUY!” pretty funny. okay anyways, so after we finished our interview with Chi we finished up the day by getting some more pictures w good artists and then went and watched cat power, raconteurs, css and radiohead. amazing. this whole thing is a bit scatterbrained…what a day…..if everyday of this trip is a 10th as good as this day was then this will be the most amazing trip ever. i’ll try and get jason to blog something since half of this probably doesn’t make sense. over and out.

-ellioto (pics coming soon…as soon as we can make photobucket work…flickr has too little space)