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i am on my way to jeruuuuuuuuuuuuuuusalem. larry and i just went body surfing in the ocean. if i wasn't in love i could stay here for awhile. and if someone else continued to pay for all my meals and my nice hotel and all my cabs. yeah, if all that happened and i wasn't in love i could hang out for a little longer.
everyone looks like this in the holy land.
for the first time in 8 years i am a car owner. i found it on craigslist today in israel and nina bought it for me in silverlake. i had left some money at her place and sort of forgotten about it so it's kind of like getting the car for free. like when you find a $20 in your jacket.
thanks, nina. i'll drive you to work.
larry and i went to the beach because people couldn't get out of bed to go on the day trip to jerusalem they had been talking about doing all month long.
too bad.
this is what i look like in swimming trunks. dave martin will be stoked to see me in a proper pair of shorts.
larry and i are going shopping downtown. we love israel.
i think i need an attitude adjustment. and the worst part was that i knew it all along. i guess it may have been fear of the unknown. it's not to say that i still don't feel a certain way about the israeli/arab situation. of which i probably know LITTLE to nothing about. but all i can say about my experience so far is that it has been great. heathrow: totally smooth. we were well taken care of by the el al staff. yafo airport: we were treated like diginitaries, met at the plane, escorted through immigration and out to our vans. the hotel is top notch. the promoter totally nice.
tomorrow i have high hopes of waking up early (in 5 hours), swimming in the meditteranean, then going to jerusalem for the day.
i've been to the middle east now and i am stoked.
somewhere off the coast of turkey
our plane, the galilee.
my hotel room.
and most importantly i feel safe and i don't feel like i am going to get trapped here on friday.
i am in heathrow waiting to fly into a country that is barely at peace with all of it's neighbors. besides being a little, just a little worried about flying into a warzone. and trying to push my problems with the trip politcally to the back of my mind. just thinking about being home on friday.
okay...while i still feel a little sad and homesick and missing everyone i like, limey's or not. i am cracking up in my bunk looking at this photo at 3:30 am.
earlier today before the gates opened larry and i were walking around. he had already been up for awhile. he told me about a giant placebo poster he saw on the fence. according to him the placebo had been crossed out and underneath the words, "shit band" had been written.
so a few hours later i was a guest of brian, belle and sebastians lighting guy, in the tower with the lights and sound desks. before the show started i saw the placebo poster on the fence, thought of larry's story and knew i would want to mention it. so i zooomed in as far as i could with my camera and just blindly snapped a photo. i didn't know what i would get. i had hoped to maybe read the words best case, worst i would see the placebo and still relate the story with some sort of visual. so imagine my surprise and what can only be described as glee when i downloaded the photo and this is what i had:
sometimes you get so used to seeing people that you don't remember that a day is coming when it will be the last time for awhile. then all of a sudden that day is over. the party is over and you go to say goodbye and that's it. you aren't saying see you next weekend in some field in a foreign country. you really have to say goodbye.
shit. i have the best friends. i am sitting here telling sarah how this last 10 days is dragging after sort of flying by and what does she do? she tells me that she is home ripping seasons of seinfeld and father ted for my ipod and that on top of that she is bringing me one of the most amazing brownies ever made.
you may recall that back in march when i was on tour with belle and sebastian this fan brought sarah a bunch of deluxe items. well we decided that these brownies were the best. well a month ago she shipped some overseas to sarah and she has managed to keep 5 frozen until now. and i get one. that's like someone letting you eat the last dinosaur on earth. except rebecca can make more brownies. and jeff goldblum is just an actor and can't really make more dinosaurs.
now i am stoked for reading! belle and sebastian and brownies.
okay a couple of things....i just woke up in my bunk. it's 4:11 am in the uk. i totally fell asleep with my computer open reading some sports blogs and downloading the last episode of sleeper cell. (god, the douche thinks that i am NOT very rock 'n' roll at all. i fear i am tainting his future epic stories of life on the road. if he ever begins to tell the truth he'll have to temper his storie of excess partying with, "well, there was the one guy who was in bed all the time watching crime dramas on his ipod or doing the crossword or yelling at me cause i was late.")
as i was saying, i 'd like to think that i woke up just now because the god damn snorchestra has started up. but i am afradi it's cause i just had a nightmare that i throw like a girl. i know, i know that isn't the right thing to say, but i am trying to give you a visual here.
in my dream i was walking down some dirt road with baseball fields (picture field of dreams) as far as the eye could see. lars, greg and lenegan were there, maybe a couple of other people i have been on tour with, too. and we were walking down the road rolling our luggage behind us. we were going home. but for some reason i had my little league uniform on. and these trains that looked like those covered but open things they have at the amusement park with the benches that are the width of the car kept driving by with families. the kids in the train had their gloves. i told the guys that i wanted to go to the game tonight. someone said it was an away game but i pointed out that all these people in the train were going. right after we walked past one of these fields a few kids jumped off the train and ran past us. i turned around to see vladimir guererro taking batting practice and they were fielding his hits. so i dropped my bag and i ran back with my glove! i was stoked! it was amazing. then a fly ball came right to me, it was like that scene in parenthood, and i dropped it but i didn't care. and then i went to throw it and the ball went like 20 feet, if that. i was mortified. and then i can barely throw the balls, lamely still, fast enough to keep up with the next one coming right for my head. and the whole time i have my stupid little league outfit on, spats and all. so i'd like to blame my sudden conciousness in bed on the snoring machine but it's probably my nightmare of throwing the baseball like a sissy.
this is not vlad.
maybe it just means i am tired and exhausted from work and i can't wait to go home. we are going on 21 days in a row. with 10 more to go.
rock 'n' roll.