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3/9, 5:45PM
After a slightly late start, we embarked with tales of hardcore badger
porn. The van is sluggish under the weight and we can't see out
the rear window at all. Sarah is our first driver. Carbomb the stuffed
cat rests peacefully on the dashboard. The straps holding the carrier
on top of the car flap, annoying us. All is well.
3/9, 9:45PM
Stopped at Sarah's house in Columbus, where we gathered many
pastries and taped down those irritating carrier straps. We left from
there heading toward Cincinnati, to a taped reading of "The
Raft", by Stephen King. Wow, was that ever a morale booster!
Megan took over for Sarah behind the wheel, and Carbomb fell under the
seat somewhere, unfortunately. Now, as we cruise down interstate 71 to
the sounds of cellos covering the Beatles, we eagerly await the food
and sleep to be found in Louisville, Kentucky.
3/10, 1:45AM
Finally, LOUISVILLE!!! After a slight detour to Lexington, we arrived
at Megan's at 1:00AM, where we feasted upon the various delicacies
her family so wonderfully prepared for us. The "Check
Engine" light came on for no apparent reason, which soon was
joined by a chorus of beeps emanating from the nether regions of the
dashboard. The missing evolutionary link between kangaroos and turkeys
was found to be the west coast, surprisingly enough. Go figure. The
plans are laid for the journey of the morrow, and soon we shall retire
for a precious few hours of slumber.
3/10, 9:30AM
After showers and breakfast, we pack up the van and prepare to move
out for day two on the road. The goal for today is to find a hostel at
a decent halfway point between Louisville and El Paso. More likely now
is the possibility of crashing somewhere ultra cheap in Texarkana.
Mmm... luscious Texarkana.
3/10, 11:00AM
TENNESSEE! It is now 11, as we gain an hour across the time zone
border. The speed limit is up to 70MPH now, so we might actually get
to Texarkana before midnight. We are all growing a bit restless, and
Carbomb is horny as hell. Now the word "Carbomb" is a listed
as a proper noun in our online dictionary... Carbomb is pleased
that he no longer comes up with the spell check. Looks like rain up
ahead, and Aaron really has to pee. Coincidence? Not likely. Aaron is
most likely a psychic weather gauge. More on that later... You
can trust the American people.
3/10, 12:30PM
We just had our first lunch on the road, in the parking lot of a
shopping mall of all places. Mall security drove past about ten
times... they were coveting our tofu sandwiches. Now we're
about 10 miles past Nashville, three hours until Memphis. The pickles
have been opened! The word of the day is: proegophagia. Stomachs full
and badgers angry, we press on toward Memphis.
3/10, 7:53PM
We have abandoned the guys at the last gas station and have now
"officially" taken over. We, the liberated women of this
group, have had it with all this testosterone in the car. Not only
does it smell bad, but Alex keeps letting his male pheromones get into
the animal crackers. Carbomb has calmed down without the guys and has
stopped attempting to HUMP peoples arms. Anyway, we are about 30 miles
from Texarkana and are currently listening to classical music at this
point. It is now storming outside, but back here in the
"womb"* (notice all the quotes, Alex hates them, we found
them on odd signs throughout the day) it is warm, cozy, and full of
delicious CARPET animal crackers. * Note: the backseat will henceforth
be called the "womb" and must be exited head first.*
3/11, 12:45AM
Ate, watched movie, went over details for the upcoming El Paso gig.
Now we sleep for one thousand years... In a VERY nasty dirty
Knights Inn (Night Sin?), but as they think we're only one person,
the price cannot be complained about. We made Kool-Aid. Yum.
3/11, 10:00AM
After a good night's sleep, we ate breakfast and loaded the van.
Toastee O's never tasted so good. Now we prepare for the
eight-hour journey to Odessa, Texas. One more night and we're in
El Paso!
3/11, 3:20PM
It's been a good day on the road so far. We just stopped at a
pretty little rest stop for lunch, which was a nice break. It's a
bit cooler than we'd expected for Texas, and quite a bit windier,
but it's all blue skies and beautiful country. A fellow traveler
had some gorgeous horses that he'd stopped to exercise, which
really added to the Texan atmosphere of our windy little sup. We
should get to Odessa in about four hours, where we'll get a hotel
room, some hookers, and maybe a few carnies for fun. Maybe they'll
have a hot tub...
3/11, 9:00PM
We're in Odessa, Texas tonight. The Motel Six here is WAY cleaner
than Knight's Inn was. We had a delicious dinner of our usual
sandwiches, pickles, and wayward prostitutes. The movie last night was
"Analyze This", a cute little gangster-comedy with Robert
Deniro and Billy Crystal. Four thumbs up from ThouShaltNot. Tonight
the movie is "Coneheads". The drive down was quite nice, and
Carbomb danced for us with a stunning grace. The itinerary has been
changed a bit, as we are now making a more straight line from Missoula
to Chicago. Hopefully the weather will favor our trip tomorrow...
it's a short hop from here to El Paso, only about four hours.
There we will play the first show of the tour... woohoo! Tonight
we'll go over a few things for tomorrow and chill out.
3/12, 10:34AM
Ahhh, the joys of sleeping in. We're waking up and are going to
grab some lunch and head out around noon en route to El Paso, home of
the lowest metropolitan depression rate of any city in America. Yay
for lithium in the tap water. Our first gig should go well. If it
doesn't, we shall obliterate Texas in its entirety, so that word
of our letting them down is never communicated, leaving our reputation
intact. Megan has really got to control her addiction to paying male
prostitutes money for menial tasks, such as bringing her a newspaper,
or rotating the tires on a stranger's car. We're all hoping
for a cure soon.
3/12, 3:30PM
We're back on the go after a quick lunch by the roadside. The
country out here is very arid and mountainous, and our lunch stop was
beautiful, although we were attacked by man-eating yucca. We're
coming into some real mountains now... very pretty indeed.
We've decided to take a detour after Phoenix and stop by the Grand
Canyon, since we will pass by quite closely. Gas stations around here
are few and far between, and rather sketchy when you happen across
them. For every inhabited building we see, there are a score of
dilapidated, deserted shells. We just crossed into the Mountain time
zone, gaining yet another hour. We can't wait until El Paso, where
we can make some "El Paso Kool-Aid"... happy
Kool-Aid.
3/12, 11:10PM
Damn we're cool. We just finished our show in El Paso at the
scene's sole goth club, Club Dedo, owned by very nice men who gave
us all free pineapple pizza and breadsticks. Mike (one of the owners)
told us that this used to be a gay club and we were shocked because it
is about as goth as it can be; stone walls, candlesticks, morbid
paintings, black walls and little purple Christmas lights in the wee
alcove back here where we are selling the CDs. We've already sold
a few cds and there were actually people dancing during the set.
Despite the wobbly stage, nothing fell over and none of us fell
through the thin boards. Everybody looked good, and a very nice lady
whose name will be given at a later time when I figure out what it is
has volunteered her place down the street for the night if we'll
give her a ride home, which is great because the DJ who was supposed
to put us up for the night pulled a no-show (We are learning recently
that DJs and booking agents we do not know personally are not as
reliable as you would think). Foo likes girls. Pray that we make at
least some money off this gig....
3/13, 10:30AM
Barbara is the bomb! We stayed here at her Dad's house last night
in El Paso. Last night was awesome. Although there was a very small
turnout (the door didn't break even), the few people there really
dug our set, and we played very well. Afterwards we came back here,
and Barbara and here sister fixed a wonderful meal of fettuccini
alfredo and salad, and the club owner and a few of the die-hard scene
members came over for food and fun. It was nice to chat with everyone
and get a feel for the scene here... everyone seems very cool.
The scene here seems to be ruled by similar politics to most goth
scenes, and that is unfortunate, but as usual everyone was extremely
friendly and we stayed up chatting with them until 4 in the morning.
The club owner, Mike, was really cool, and apparently he works for a
sound company so he actually knew what he was doing, making the show a
hundred times easier for us. It's too bad that the turnout was so
small and that his policy didn't allow us to make any cash. Oh,
well. We had a great time, played a strong set and made some really
cool new friends. Word of the day: Stylokleptomania.
3/13, 8:45PM
Albuquerque SUCKS!!! We got here and our contact hadn't even set
up a show. That was nice... so we fumbled around for a couple of
hours, went to Wendy's, and now we're on the road to Phoenix.
Actually, we're trying to get out of this God-forsaken city and
get onto I-40 west. And now we're lost. Megan hates this town.
Actually, that seems to be the consensus; we'll be sending a
ticked-off (but not nasty, because we're nice people) e-mail to
the contact who screwed us over. Alex's voice is almost gone and
we keep trying to shut him up but he keeps spouting silliness in his
new, husky, Barry White-esque voice. We'll be in a motel in
God-knows-where soon enough. We're looking forward to our lesbian
in Phoenix tomorrow. We sadly couldn't get a hold of Tommy T, so
we now leave this forsaken pit of depravity. Bluagh.
3/14, 12:00AM
Well, we're at a Day's Inn in Gallup, New Mexico tonight. We
made a little more progress toward Phoenix, so tomorrow we should only
have about four and a half hours to drive tomorrow. Everybody is
looking forward to the Phoenix gig, we just hope that there will be a
good turnout. For now, we watch Three Amigos and relax though.
Glorf.
3/14, 10:00AM
Yay for free juice and donuts! We raided the continental breakfast,
and now we shower and pack up for our 11AM checkout. It's just a
short hop to Phoenix. Alex's voice is still not much better.
We're considering voodoo to return it to its full splendor. Now if
we could only find some roosters and a scythe....
3/14, 3:55PM
So we're cruising down highway 17, south to Phoenix. We just got
back on the road because we had to pull over; the car decided to
overheat. Thank goodness Megan and Foo noticed or we would have been
in trouble. We're pretty sure the problem is the transmission,
because it's been kicking and neglecting to shift properly for a
couple days now. We're going to try to make it the 70 miles or so
to Phoenix, but we may end up stopping at an earlier exit if things
get bad. Right now we're driving with the heater on and the
windows down, but we're maintaining a speed of about 75, which is
the speed limit, and that's pretty darn promising. In other news,
lunch at a little picnic area was fun, and we've decided that we
like Arizona because the climate is nice but there are still big trees
and snow (Sarah's theory is that Arizona has "special"
snow that has a freezing point above 30 degrees). There are more
bushes, trees and mountains here, as well as depressing Indian
reservations whose brightly-colored signs line the highway from exit
to exit. Megan was impressed by the cement dinosaurs ranging in color
from hot pink to baby blue. Alex's throat is still in pretty bad
shape but he's been sucking down lozenges like there's no
tomorrow, and Sarah pinched a nerve while loading the car and is
barely able to stand up straight, but despite these shitty events
morale is still fairly good. We're all looking forward to
tonight's show, because the money should make up for our losses
recently in expensive gas. The club we're playing normally has its
goth night on Tuesdays, so we'll be set if we can just get to
Phoenix. Plus, they promised us food, lodging, and a lesbian. Does it
get better than that?
3/15, 12:17AM
Just finished our show here in Phoenix... not bad. We played very
well, but the crowd didn't seem to be into dancing all that much.
They all applauded quite a bit between songs, and they're buying
CDs... hmm. For now we chill out at our merch table and dance a
bit. Tomorrow we have to get the van into the shop ASAP, because
it's gotten so bad that it overheats constantly, and we no longer
have reverse. You never realize how useful reverse is until you no
longer have it. We had to get out and push the van at one
point... eck. Where the hell's our lesbian, anyway?
3/16, 3:35AM
After about an hour of packing and repacking we finally managed to
squeeze everything back into the van. Five minutes later, while
commenting on how the van was running decently, it died in the middle
of the road. Ironically, it stopped only one and a half miles away
from the apartment complex at which we were crashing for the night.
So, after coasting to the side of the road, our host, Jeff, took Alex
to the gas station where he called a tow truck. Fifteen minutes later,
still in reasonable spirits, we were in the apartment complex pushing
the van into a parking place. Now exhausted and discussing the
"Plan" for tomorrow we are heading to bed. The
"Plan" so to speak is to call the Dodge dealership around
6AM, a few hours from now, and tow the van to the dealership. There,
hopefully, it can be fixed ASAP, which is necessary due to the fact
that we have a 27 hour drive to Portland where we MUST be by Friday.
So, our idea about stopping at the Grand Canyon and taking a slow,
scenic drive has been cut. Although things look a bit down and we are
exhausted from the driving, concert, and detours, the people and
overall journey of today has been well worth the efforts. For now, we
can sleep for a few hours before the early rise and maybe later while
the van is being fixed. So goodnight all, sleep well. We need
it.
3/15, 11PM
This morning Alex called the towing people and had the van taken in to
the Dodge dealership, where it was given a new transmission
altogether. It cost more than I would care to say, but with a working
transmission, we were ready to go. It was after driving back from the
dealership that we discovered that despite having allegedly been
fixed, the transmission would still not maneuver into reverse.
We'll get that fixed in Seattle. Blah. Sarah drove the glorious
highway into the Heart of Darkness, or at least Death Valley, whose
darkness penetrated even the gasoline prices - $2.15 per gallon. After
paying the incredibly skeevy attendants, we gang banged them with lead
pipes. There was super cute kitty at the gas station, showing that
California is not completely worthless. Having driven now away from
the cat, we expect not to see anything more of worth whatsoever until
we breach the threshold into Oregon.
3/16, 1AM
OK, so thanks to Megan's incredible driving skills we are nearing
LA. Yes, the city that you can get raped and robbed in all at the same
time. The exits here suck hard core, they mysteriously end or merge
without warning. The outlines of the mountains appear beautiful in the
misty darkness, however, with the unplanned detours and terrifying
curvy back roads, we feel that the view would be best seen during the
day, when the blinding lights of cars in the oncoming lanes would not
interfere. After only three detours and with the aid of the quick
navigational skills of Alex and Sarah we have managed through the
crazy drivers and exits of the pre-LA suburbs. We have found our way
back onto the freeway after being sidetracked into the city - a more
difficult task than one might assume (why are there three Mountain
Avenues?). Alex has hit his sixth wind and has now taken over,
intending to drive for most of the six hours to Palo Alto. The band
has collectively decided to drive all night, even though it is already
3 AM eastern time, in attempts to make it to J's house near San
Francisco. Unless Alex runs out of adrenaline soon, I think it is a
safe bet that we will make it. So, with KMFDM blasting to keep the
energy level high we are on the road again. Interesting to note that
at the Shell gas station , where the gas prices are lower than they
were in Death Valley, thankfully, apparently several teenagers
(understandably peeved at the astronomical gas prices) stole the keys
to the station, so the poor foreign clerk was a bit jittery. With a
quick pit stop and a pick up of some more "jew-wick-ey" not
to mention some munchies or, for Sarah, the ever-tasty orange
Flintstone push-up pop, we were outta there. Aaron is resting in an
attempt to avoid sleep deprivation and the sickness that will follow
while the rest of us take turns at the wheel. Forward, Ho!
3/16, 7:15AM (Pacific Time)
Wow, California. It's gorgeous here. Lots of rolling, green hills,
a brilliantly colored sunrise, and free-range pandas. After Alex drove
through the smog-enshrouded freeway extending north of Los Angeles,
Sarah braved the massive hills near Salinas and now Megan is
courageously attempting the streets of Palo Alto. We need to call J
soon, unless we want to show up at his door completely unexpected, but
we fear that he is going to work this morning and we need to contact
him before then! Foo sleeps like a wee muskrat, while the rest of us
find stupid things to be incredibly funny. Ahh, sleep dep. It is our
friend. Weeeeeee!!!!! There are not enough goats in California, but
there is a lady who says "Pay, pump, and go." Hm. Go
figure.
3/16, 9:30PM
We've been chillin' at J's house all day, sleeping off
last night's escapade. Last night was crazy, and tonight will
probably be just as crazy. Foo will be taking the first shift of
driving when we finally get out of here, followed probably by Megan.
Anyway, we're having a hard time leaving J's place because it
is so relaxing here. We have been watching TV and playing pool,
wrestling with J and filming each other acting goofy with his
camcorder. We were fortunate because J's brother had his swim team
over for a pre-meet dinner and we were able to mooch the leftover
pasta, bread, salad and fruit. It was a good dinner, especially since
it had been more than 12 hours since some of us had eaten anything
except pastry swirls. Hmmm, pastry swirls. His parents are very
welcoming and we are soooooooo reluctant to leave. *sigh* But Portland
beckons...
3/17, 9:25AM
Well, we all feel like shit, but we're managing. A few hours ago
Interstate 5 was transformed from a straight, easy and pleasant route
to a scary, winding, mountainous road, which has given half our group
tummy aches (along with lack of sleep, which is also hard to get on
such a road). Foo courageously battles the need to hurl. We were all
so beaten down and unable to find a band member willing to drive after
Alex and Foo had both driven their shifts, we stopped in a parking lot
at 5:00 am and took a nap. After about two hours of sleep, we all felt
much better and Megan took over. Sarah will drive next, as her
inability to hold her eyes open has now passed. We're listening to
J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit on tape, read by some pompous-sounding
British guy. Good stuff. Oh, and the smell of antifreeze is starting
to sneak into the van, promising that something is wrong with the
engine. Foo thinks it is one of the hoses that is causing the problem.
We'll see. Other than that, the van is running fine.
3/18, 3:19AM
After not being able to reach our contact in Portland initially, we
went downtown to park, only to realize that placing the van within a
mile of the club would be near impossible, as Portland has the largest
St. Patrick's Day festival on the west coast. Miraculously, we
nabbed a spot and wandered the city streets. Everything seemed fine as
we moved the car nearer to the club to unload, but finding the proper
loading door led us on a goose chase around seemingly the entire state
of Oregon, where left turns are evidently banned. As we finished
loading our gear into the club, Trace, the hideously dressed promoter,
who bore an uncanny resemblance to Garth from Wayne's World,
appeared and informed us that A.) we would be playing earlier that
planned and B.) we would not be allowed in the audience for the rest
of the show because we are under 21. As a matter of fact, we
couldn't even hear the other bands from the section of the
restaurant in which we were isolated. In order to find out what was
going on or get our stuff from the main room we had to ask permission
first, and toward the end of the show we were ready to take an ice
pick to somebody's throat because we were trying to figure out
whether the show had ended and were told to return to our little area.
Boy, did the words "fuck you!" ever hover on our lips. As
for the first matter, Trace insisted that the local band, Written in
Ashes, would draw the local crowd, and therefore should go on after
us, even though everybody knows that the local bands ALWAYS go first,
followed by the bands that are from out of town or which are signed to
record labels, both of which were the case for us, and NOT for the
other band. So, we were doubly shafted: only once, however, was it
Trace's fault, as the other was due to Oregon state law. In his
attempts to make up for these inconveniences, however, Trace merely
dug himself into an even deeper hole, offering us half-price food and
free drinks, when any other club would have bought us dinner. But the
stage was large and the soundman proved more knowledgeable than most,
and we made friends with the other performers. Mike from our label,
ADSR Musicwerks, was present, along with his band, Noxious Emotion.
Because it was St. Patrick's Day (the theme of the show was
"The St. Patty's Day Massacre") and the band was without
any green clothing whatsoever, Sarah spray painted her hair green. It
did not turn out as well as hoped, but still looked cool under the
black lights at the punk store next door. Megan changed outfits this
time, from her long black dress to her vinyl bondage pants and a cute
shirt with a wicked-looking fae. She did her eye makeup like black
butterfly wings. During the show Megan was assailed with shouts from a
group of clearly ignorant drunkards who, fortunately, left halfway
through the third song. Meanwhile a group of people gathered at the
side of the stage and stared intently at Sarah, unnerving her because
she thought they were pointing out her clearly flawed playing of the
keyboard parts. She later learned that rather than scrutinizing her
musicality, they were enthralled by her radiant beauty. Upon leaving
the stage at the end of the show, which went very well all in all, she
was randomly French kissed by one of her ogglers. When she made known
her displeasure, her assailant's girlfriend revealed that she had
told him to kiss her as a litmus test to see whether she would go home
with both of them and perform unspeakable acts. When Sarah revealed
that she and Alex were dating, rather than backing off, the horny
couple then invited him to join Sarah in the debauchery back at home.
They kindly declined the offer, flattered and a bit intrigued.
3/18, 4:03PM
After the show, instead of staying in Portland, we drove straight up
to Seattle, with Sarah and Alex alternating driving, both struggling
to stay awake on the way to Mike's house while Aaron and Megan
slept in the back seat. Through some miracle, there was no sleeping at
the wheel and we gratefully collapsed onto Mike's spare beds at
six in the morning. Today we've been relaxing in Seattle and
watching the news while hanging out at Mike's house, the home base
of ADSR Musicwerks. SMP unfortunately had to bail on the show tonight,
but we're still psyched to play with Noxious again (and actually
SEE them this time) as well as Fockewolf, featuring the lovely
Severina, over whom Alex and Aaron have been obsessing since
August.
3/20, 10:37AM
To catch up from where we left off, we all drove the Auburn Annex in
tandem and set up. We were unimpressed with the soundman, who
couldn't have been more than 17 or 18 years old. We went onstage
first, which was initially bothersome as we were the only of the three
bands playing who was not local and who was on tour, but as Fockewolf
and Noxious Emotion shared essentially the same stage setup, the only
other choice was to go on third out of three bands, and we recognized
that by that point, the all-ages crowd would have thinned out a bit.
Another bonus of our having gone first is that our huge banner with
ThouShaltNot's logo on it hung above all three of the bands as
they played, just possibly deceiving any would-be Fockewolf or Noxious
Emotion customers into thinking it was we who so impressed them,
leading them to purchase our CD. Heh heh heh. Our friends Shoshana and
Aaron (Alex's former roommate) from back in Wooster showed up as
they were in town. We ended up sleeping at the house of Shoshana's
sister and brother in-law, both of whom were not only fabulously
hospitable, but also very cool. We took a day of rest in Seattle and
went out shopping, then came home to watch the X-Files at the house
for a second night. After waking up sufficiently early this morning,
we now find ourselves en route to Missoula, Montana, goth capital of
the WORLD!! Er... No. In fact, it is so devoid of anything even
vaguely gothic that our show there will be an unplugged folk show at a
coffeehouse called the Raven Café. Thankfully they have a
piano, which Alex will play diabolically whilst Aaron drums on
something and Megan plays cello, with Sarah adding some harmonies.
This ought to be a fun show, and as we are not under obligation to be
overly dark and gloomy, we'll be getting a little crazy,
especially in the second set, which will feature medleys from hell and
maybe some more surprises. We'll be staying with Megan's uncle
tonight and then tomorrow, it's off to South Dakota. Woo friggin
hoo.
3/20, 11:56PM
We just got back to Megan's uncle's house from our acoustic
show. The performance was well-received by the small and very
laid-back crowd attending, and we spoke with one or two locals from
the café, though it was no surprise that the performance was
not flawless, nor even especially gothic. Our offerings included a
plethora of covers, such as a swing version of "Enter
Sandman" as well as a truly bizarre medley of disjointed pop
tunes. The owners were nice and we had overall a good enough time,
despite not being paid (though that was understood at the outset). We
sold two CDs, which was dandy. Back at Bill and Hope's
(Megan's relatives), we were fed delicious food in mass quantity,
including pie-wedge sized fudge brownies. *insert drooling noise*
Tomorrow we drive to South Dakota, probably Rapid City, with the
perhaps silly aspiration of catching a view of Mount Rushmore
somewhere in the mix. We figured that because we missed out on the
Grand Canyon, we could at least see man's destruction of nature in
glorification of himself instead.
3/21, 1:04PM
Oh, the glory of Bozeman, Montana. Hoorah to Megan for driving for
three hours to get us through the winding mountain passages. We meant
to leave Bill and Hope's place by 9am, but we didn't leave
until 10, in part because we were so unable to stop chatting with such
delightful people. Sam, their first-grader son, stayed out on the
porch in bare feet in the cold to wave goodbye as we drove away. What
a cutie. We think we made an impression on the kid, who is aspiring to
play either the drums or the keyboards. He had us sign the copy of the
CD that we sold to his parents.
3/22, 8:36AM
It's morning here in Rapid City, South Dakota. We stayed in our
last motel of the trip, staying up entirely too late watching talk
shows whose topic - no joke - was "My uncle is the father of my
child". Mmmmm.... Luscious sweet incest. As soon as the rest
of us finish showering, we're taking on our last big day of
driving, approximately twelve hours to Iowa City to stay with Karen,
Alex's sister. We'll hang out there for a day with her and
relax a bit before our last gig in Chicago, but as the tour winds
down, I think all of us are definitely at the point at which we've
had enough driving for the next year or three. It is with some
enthusiasm that we witness the gas prices dropping as we travel east
through the Midwest. Today we paid $1.37 per gallon and danced
merrily. It seems we're finally embarking on the last leg.
3/22, 5:14PM
Though there's still a ways to go today, we're more than
halfway to Karen's in Iowa City. We just stopped for food and
purged the van of narsty remnants uneaten and spoiled. We're
almost done with the book on tape of The Hobbit. Sadly, we've not
listened as much to our high brow library as we ought to have, but as
all of us have strongly individual musical tastes, after listening to
three driving shifts of each other's music, we are more than ready
to hear our own personal Metallica, Alphaville, Vivaldi, or Frente!.
Today has been the single most boring drive in our entire trip. The
Great Plains are hardly great in any way. The ennui inspired by them
is soporific on us as we drive and we'll be thankful when our Iowa
journey is over. Word of the day: Pivving Out
3/22, 11:37PM
We're here! After a bit of wandering, we managed to find
Karen's apartment building and now we chill. Karen's cool, and
her cats are gargantuan. Alex is filling Karen in on our journey thus
far, and everyone else is adding in our two cents here and there, and
just enjoying a chance to sit down in a seat that doesn't move.
The conversation is quite animated now... we could take this show
on the road. Oh, wait...
3/24, 9:55AM
We spent yesterday wandering in Iowa City and shopping, acquiring
clothes and music. The town is charming and full of stuff to do. Karen
was hit by a car while on her bicycle, but is fine. Her bike needs a
bit of attention though. We made pasta last night with lots of
mushrooms and there was much rejoicing. After that, we went out and
saw American Beauty, which is still in theatres here. Wow... what
a fabulously made movie, if a bit of a downer. Nothing wrong with
downers, though (so writes the goth singer...) We're heading
out in an hour for Chicago (with much eagerness on Sarah's part,
as her cat allergies have been exploding in Karen's apartment),
where we'll meet up with Alex's parents and do what is sure to
be the best show of the tour. There are tons of people whom we know
who are planning to show up, and we look forward to blowing them away
with the performance. Or just blowing them.
3/25, 2:11AM
Just finished a fabulous set at Chicago's Club Mutiny, where one
of ThouShaltNot's biggest fans, Batty, is a dj. The crowd grew
steadily as we played, and by the time the owner made us leave (again,
because we are under 21, but we are not complaining because we were
lucky to have been allowed to play at all!) we had sold 9 cds. Right
now we are at Batty's place trying to find something to watch on
television: Megan doesn't feel well, Foo is worried about where we
parked our car in such a skeevy nieghborhood with so much equipment
still in it, and Sarah is thrilled that Batty has not one, not two,
but THREE irresistable kitties. But Alex is happy because he was just
handed $120 for the gig. The day was spent navigating the hellish
streets of Chicago, where Alex's driving skills were put to the
test after a wonderful early dinner at Uno's Pizzeria with
Alex's Mom, who was delightful. Alex's parents later took us
to a nearby Kentucky Fried Chicken before the show (after we had
soundchecked and needed someplace to go) and bought all Sprites,
further proving their generosity. Alex's sister Karen and a friend
of hers also attended the show. We're a little disappointed
because we invited a number of people, but it was nice to have more
fans than usual to support us. And we made a ton of money. Tomorrow,
we head for home with great enthusiasm, hopefully stopping on the way
at a music store.
3/25, 12:47PM
After a hearty breakfast of Life cereal and some mushy goodbyes to an
unconcious Batty and her super-cuddly trio of friendly cats, we are
homeward bound on 90 East, a toll road. We have just entered Indiana,
the last state we will pass through before we return to Ohio, making
our trip encompass 17 states in 17 days. Wooo. We are excited to be
going home but are also somewhat bummed because a ton of schoolwork
lies ahead of us. We will be stopping on the way, however, to fulfill
Foo's boyhood dream of visiting what is perhaps the world's
largest music store in South Bend, Indiana. Oh, and the van was left
untouched last night even though, after all our efforts to secure it
against theives, a certain-someone-who-shall-remain-nameless left the
driver's side window down. Funny how that works.
That was the last entry made in the ThouShaltNot Spring 2000 Tour
Journal. Apparently they never made it home...
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