Where is the hotel?

i am a rock bottom riser

welcome back to LA. it feels like fucking ohio in august here. humid and hot. hotter than i have felt in a long time. well, since last summer at least. definitely a perk of my job is spending the last 6 summers in europe where the temp, seemingly, doesn't max out over 78 degrees.
so i got back to this heat just in time to move my stuff. move it out of storage and move it out of nina's. moving, like flying, can be nostalgic. right? i haven't even seen 75% of the things i own since i moved to LA in july of 2005. so it feels weird. and i haven't even cracked a box yet! minus the 4 boxes of records i put on shelves just to make it feel like i had started and like i actually live somewhere. which i do! i can't wait to start accumulating stuff. and that's funny because i have spent the last two years telling myself i am happy to not have any things. but it's not true. i want things now. specifically a nice table for my kitchen, a flat screen tv and maybe some maps.

right now i am in kime's newly redecorated apartment and it's an amazing inspiration. check it out here. i can't put any photos up cause american airlines lost my bag with the cable for my camera. but by time i get the bag hopefully i'll have some amazing new apartment photos.

sunday mornin' coming down

i am thinking about going out and drinking more often.

oh wait, it gets better

hey look! it's a night carnival.

finally. at last reading and leeds festivals are behind me for another summer. it's a positive thing! no more backed up toilets. no more disgusting showers.

it takes the sun setting and the lights turning on on the funfair rides to make you forget that it's a urine soaked field you're standing in.

but on the other hand it's a cavalcade of friends that you run into at these things!

fellow tour manager and new dad (!) dave burton watching the shins sign autographs.

fellow tour manager gabe and sound lady dana waiting to take M.I.A's gear to the stage in Paris.

farmer dave in japan!

and my bro's! my old interpol co-workers. for one special hour we were reunited in Tokyo Haneda airport waiting for our plane to Osaka. Ally, Harley, Lucas. my brothers.

i am stoked. i am stoked to be going home. stoked to meet my new landlords and move into my apartment. stoked to stop listening to the complaints, both from me and others. i feel like it's a sharp contrast between the mentality of this tour from the heady days of Japan, just 3 weeks ago and now. now, after the morale has been sucked out of everyone by the days of nothing at european festivals. days spent sitting on a bus waiting 12 hours to work. days spent with one free meal a day. walking back and forth across dusty or muddy fields searching for friends or trying to evade the stench of piss. larry puked the other day after we walked past a particularly offensive patch of pee at the leeds festival. he just spontaneously puked when i poined out that only at leeds festival could people turn an idyllic row of trees and grass into an acrid smelling alley that would put any amsterdam red light district street to shame.

but anyway... then the sun went down and the lights on the ride turned on and the red hot chili peppers started singing about california and everything was okay. well, i mean as okay as it can be when it's the red hot chili peppers singing about california on a massive inescapable PA system.

AA flight 135 arrives at 6:35 pm if you want to come with kime to LAX.

and all you sweet girls with all your sweet silly talk

you know you're in france when you can hear the Velvet Underground and Nico wafting over the wall from the kitchen. the caterers are cranking it at 9 AM. "The Black Angels Death Song" never sounded so good as it does now watching the rain turn this field into a mud pit and the cute french girl serve up scrambled ouefs.

i have made a big decision.

i feel the field of battle within my life

i miss japan. holland is fine but 5 days in this country is enough. i bought a tube of mayonaisse yesterday. it looked good.
i am stoked to come home. i've been looking for mattresses (again) online. i want, i want to just buy one and have it shipped and waiting for me when i get home. i want to come home, drop my bags and plop down. on my bed and sigh and soak in the leaves and breathe. i wanna do some yoga next to my bed and look out over the patio at the foliage. i want to do a sun salutation to the sun! that'll be a first i want to get home by 8 pm and take a nap on my bed and go upstairs and see cali. or drive down the hill and see kime. it's going to be sweet and i can't wait for it to start.

but it will only be a week. then i'll be gone again. and that's okay. 4 more days with dinosaur and then 3 weeks with the white stripe and 3 with the go! team. i'll be home for a day or two here or there. but right now there isn't really a reason to be home. i am on the road and healing feeling free but homesick. we have 5 shows in a row starting today. eindhoven, paris, reading, leeds, edinborough. then we fly to austria, play a show and i come home from vienna. 52,735 miles this year. i listen to lavender diamond "you broke my heart" and "rise in the springtime" on the plane (any plane) a lot.

usually when it's landing. i don't know how i started this. i think it was in australia. on the flight from adelaide to perth. i liked the way it made me feel. i love feeling nostalgic and lonely in my private time i guess. i mean i can do it when i am around 1000 people if i want to. i think on the plane i have given my self control over and i have no fear of it crashing and so i listen to these two songs i have found that are sort of soaring and inspirational. i listen mostly when we are landing. i hide the headphones under my hair, i disobey the flight attendants and i think, "well, if it goes down this will be a lovely soundtrack".

it's a conundrum. i want to go home. i want to stay away.

you'll feel my ghost when you cross my path again

freedom

blogs i am thinking about starting:

- a blog with my favorite road cases i see around the world

- a blog for people that already have blogs but maybe they want to write someting and they don't want their mom, dad, family, boyfriend, girlfriend whomever to see what it says. has yours become popular? do i know you? can you show me more than 5 comments from your parents? you can post.

- a blog where i can just post random photos. where i don't expect myself to write. not that i have been doing much of that lately anyway. but random photos i like the ones above and below.

always something there to remind me

scutaro the dog. scout has eye surgery today to fix his ingrown eye lashes that poke his eyes and make them run like crazy in the summer. after today he won't go blind. one of the things i miss the most on the road. in general. scoots the spooner. i love you. i'm in holland and i am thinking about you.

time flies

my week. a retrospective.

monday.
flight from osaka to portugal via london heathrow. aka total nightmare. JAL (Japan Airlines) planes are not built for 6'3" westerners. Heathrow airport is not built for humans, in general.

osaka

heathrow

sheraton porto. possible contender for room of the year.

tuesday.
11 am lobby call. 2 hour drive to festival. 2 pm soundcheck. 12 hours of sitting around in the rain. new york dolls show that was terrible. dinosaur show that started an hour late (not our fault). 2 hour drive back to hotel at 2:30 am.

ew.

wednesday.
remember we arrived at the hotel at 4:30 AM. 8 AM lobby call. flight to lisbon. flight to brussels. lost bag in brussels. 1 hour drive to hasselt, belgium. day off. everything is closed, naturally, due to a national holiday. everything is usually closed when you finally get a day off. i sat in my room and caught up on paper work and watched grey's anatomy on my computer. i tried to read but couldn't concentrate.

thursday.
day off. first day of the pukkelpop festival. j and i went early, around 12 pm, so he could see the doctor. we checked out some bands. we went back to the hotel and went back to the festival later in the day. j and i were out front, where all the festival goers are, looking for frites when we got the quote of the day, maybe the year.
dutch kid: "hey are you the dinosaur jr guy?"
j: "yeah"
dutch kid: "oh wow! thank you for the grunge."

this girl from bonde de role was at every show i went to see that day.

fall out boy. are. terrible. plus they are posers. look at the back of the speaker cabinets. they aren't even plugged in. they have one tiny amp for each guitar on the side of the stage. lord knows why, unless they don't want to hear how bad they sound. we have been at the same festival as them since tokyo.

we saw watt. he was telling us that he had to go. it was an hour before the stooges set. that means he has to go in the dressing room with ron and scott asheton and pace. seriously. they pace in silence before each gig for an hour. it's mandatory. facists! meanwhile iggy was in the bigger room by himself next door. probably not pacing.

asheton, post pacing session.

i went back to the hotel at this point, exhausted from about 10 hours of sleep in 3.5 days.

friday.
checked out of the hotel. met the bus. went back to the same festival. checked in there and proceeded to sit around for 10 hours until the dinosaur show. i went and saw css, another band we have been glued to since tokyo. they were great. and sweet people too. i am totally in love the with the keyboard girl. then chris cornell. totally awesome. totally retarded. and then two arcade fire songs. amazing. i can't believe i love that band. also ate 1 order of pomme frites and 1 belgian waffle.

css. sigh.

chris cornell. he played spoonman. that was the lowpoint. high point. outshine. lowest point, acoustic cover of michael jacksons billy jean.

arcade fire. they look like children of the corn. but they really rule live.

saturday
another 12 hours of sitting around with fall out boy. this time in erfurt, germany. my friend renate was their working. she brought her niece to show her that it isn't all fun and games backstage.that people really work. what a german thing to do! but it's kind of hard to make that point when i am sure she mainly saw a bunch of people sitting around making fun of fall out boy, for 12 hours. inya was smart and konked in the middle of the afternoon. alos, went to the haribo gummi candy bar and stocked up. and looked at this lake for awhile.

sunday
rolled up to yet another festival. holland, this time. tried to go see the shins. got extremely bored. went back to the bus. found out j was gonna jam with sonic youth. i went and checked that out. we played and now i am waiting for the bus to move at 8:30 am to groningen, holland where we'll spend two days off and then play a show. high adventure.

you made me forget my dreams

i got the apartment in the trees!