Where is the hotel?

i broke my own heart

yesterday i had the most epic post ever pretty much ready to go. then my computer jammed up. at the same time murph got in trouble for playing the red hot chili peppers practice drum kit. it might not have been a big deal if they hadn't just returned to the dressing room from their show.

anyway, now i am in berlin. it's great. all these places are great. my mind is melting. i've only been home for like 6 days in 3 months and i won't be home for another 4 weeks. no wonder nina dumped me. my mind is melitng. the boredom is palpable and the only thing i have to keep me going is wikipedia. i think, "i'll go read a book." instead i end up reminiscing with j and keith about lollapallooza line ups from the 90's for like 45 minutes. and brainstorming who could sing for the nirvana reunion tour.... my favorite choices, courtney love and billy corogan. i spent $180 on dvd's in nashville. but haven't watched one. j and keith are watching my larry sanders dvd as we speak but i promised i would write. my mind is melting. tomorrow is our second and last show with the chili peppers. which means we'll show up at 8 am. i'll (maybe) get up at 9 am so i can eat free breakfast. then i'll repack my bag for australia. i will pretend like i am looking forward to the 27 hour flight. i'll pretend like i'll get so much done and it'll be great. i'll watch movies. i'll read. i'll do a little work. but i know that unless i get a valium, xanax or ambien tomorrow i will only do one thing: i'll lean forward in my seat and stare at that little map with the plane for 27 hours. i think i'll listen to my ipod but i'll just stare and my mind will melt.

i guess you should go see cali's art show tonight. it looks cool. i don't know though.... i am bored. sure. sure. i've heard the saying... only boring people are boring. but it's not true. have you been away from home working for 42 straight days?

anyway...here's what happened since london.

we took the ferry. what do you do on the ferry to france at 3 am? you sleep or you text. here's an example of both. i did neither. i ate english breakfast and walked around the boat. each lap i stopped in duty free hoping there would be something other than giant toblerones and perfume. but there wasn't.

showed up in amsterdam. larry came down from his day off out in the country on his pearl jam tour. we ate frites. we didn't have cheese crack. some dudes floated by in the canal with their dog. i was jealous. dinosaur played a show, i got a pizza, went to bed.

woke up in fribourg, switzerland. i always wonder why they abbreviate switzerland, "ch". i wonder but not enough to ever ask. or for that matter to wikipedia it now. i'll wikipedia lollapalooza line ups all night long but not that. well there's lots of things to fall in love with at this particular club, namely the giant skull mirrorball (about 5'6" tall) and the wall of 90's rock posters. at the end of the night i found a rasta hat on the coat rack in the kitchen. so i decided to see what i would look like if i was a dread locked stoner. got on the bus and went to sleep. oh, this was also the day we added yet another show to this tour.

woke up at the staduim in munich. it was a good thing that i ate about 20 times over the course of the day. (all day amazing catering, I love you.) cause i walked about 32 miles back and forth between the stage and the bus and the dressing room. the chili peppers production people were all super nice and helpful and friendly. this is probably cause most of them were zipping around on bikes. and probably cause they are deep down nice and rad.

we soundchecked.

3 minutes after completion gates opened. the stream of kids was inbetween the stage and the dressing room. which meant it was like playing frogger trying to fjord the stream of people booking for the best seats in the house. and i couldn't tell you where those were.

dinosaur jr shredded to like a half full stadium, a measly 20,000 people or so.

then i went back to catering. it was "grill party" night.

then i watched the first 3 rhcp songs from the bunker below the side of the stage.

i watched lou barlow watch the red hot chili peppers.

the club we played tonight turned into a disco. and now i can hear 3,000 german kids dancing to "sweet home alabama". it's a little disconcerting. and we're off to hamburg in 5 minutes. my mind is melting.

i've been eating all day

i always cry at endings

london.... i know i have talked about it in the past in such disparaging terms. but i've learned to love it. even in the rain, in the summer. you can walk around and feel it's age. and i have finally found a hotel outside of japan that has gotten around to getting the mirrors that don't fog up in the middle so you can shower and shave without messing up the mirror. it only took 7 years for the rest of the world to catch up. baby steps.

look at this giant step! london has the world's first Whole Foods outside of the US. and look who showed it to me! ruth was living in nyc 3 years ago when i met her shortly after halloween. i remember bonding over our shared loathe of getting dressed up. she was purportedly studying design at the new school or FIT or something there and i had just retired from touring, or so i thought. i would distract ruth and her roommate, lucy from their studies with late night calls to go out for a drink or to a movie or to go see some band play. and they never went to school and we hung out til late, a lot.

well, you don't need a degree in design to be a good mom. that's for sure. (actually, i think she got that degree.) shit! ruth had a kid. it's a testament to will. she decided she wanted to have a kid and she did it. way to go. that was the easy part. the hard part was naming it. rumor had it that if you didn't name your kid within 6 weeks the government names it for you. at the last minute she settled for Eva and although Ruth is still not sure about it...i think it's pretty name. better than laurel, which is what she was called for a day or two.

ruth and eva, friends forever!

it's like heaven holding a baby. look at those blue eyes!

eva, you're going to have an amazing life growing up in london right around the corner from the world's largest urban whole foods.

then we went to aerosmith in hyde park. our backstage access left something to be desired so we tried to go out front and watch from there. as it had been raining all day it was disgusting. so we just decided to really go for it and make it as gross as possible. we ate some vegetarian hot dogs and burgers from a stand. gnarly! then we went to a pub and had one beer while the bartender was yelling at us cause they were closing. at 10:30 pm. how's a mom supposed to have a night out if the bars are closing at 10:30 pm?

but that was that. We went back and relieved the babysitter and Ruth schooled me on english tea (pg tips is "builders tea"! i always thought it was the fancy people drank) and we watched the who live at the glastonbury festival on the tv. and eva got up cause she loves to hang out with the grown ups and it's hard for the grown ups to stick to the plan of making the baby stick to the plan of having a routine.

the funny thing is that at the same time as i was in london hanging out with a baby Robin proud newly mother herself, was leaving this comment:

You must have about a zillion stamps in your passport! Bon Voyage & keep the travel photos coming - I like knowing there is a world beyond my living room at 3 am, feeding a hungry infant who doesn't know day from night.

but then we all went to bed cause that's what kids gotta do and there's still a tour to plan and gas men to be met in the morning.

sometimes i feel like the mother of the world

with two children, fighting.

j and i went to the georgia aquarium. it was next to the world of coke, right near the cnn center. atlanta is corporate sponsored all the way. the aquarium was cool cause it had whale sharks. but the lame thing about it was they just swam up at the top of the tank. we were walking at the bottom. so all you see are these ghostly silhouettes of their bellies. weird.

au revoir america. au revoir, ice cubes. i am off in an hour to begin ping ponging around the globe. 24 hours from now i'll be waking up to my day off in london. i'll visit 12 different countries and 18 flights on this trip before i return to the states on the 30th or the 31st depending on if we go to helsinki.

this is the way i remember it to be

look who came to the show last night in san antonio! gerard cosloy.

it was awesome to see him. i couldn't believe he made the 60 mile trek from austin when he could have been home watching re-runs of weeds or the o'reilly report, for that matter.
gerard was deep wound's manager for a minute in 1984 amongst many other incredible life accomplishments, like seeing the first and only last rights show.
do you know about deep wound? if it weren't for them dinosaur wouldn't be around today.

do you know about the deep wound sweater that j is wearing below?

j's mom made that sweater for him in 1984. it's a pretty cool mom that knits her kid a sweater with a pool of blood and the name of his hardcore band on it. i should know cause my mom is about 2 minutes away from blowing my mind when she leaves a comment like:

oh i listened to "video prick" by deep wound on their myspace page and i kind of liked it. it was much faster than earth and the songs were nice and short. it had a lot of energy. not like interpol who i always thought were so depressing.

or something like that. it goes to show the things that mom's will do to relate to their sons.

you're lucky. because now you'll know about one of the most radical notes ever passed backstage in the history of rock concerts.
after the dinosaur show i am standing in the lot behind the venue talking to gerard when amanda from the production company walks up with a note from someone out front. this is what it said:

girl that knit the deep wound replica sweater.... you are incredible.

sometimes i don't thrill you, sometimes i think i'll kill you

seymour stein, i've been lonely

here's a photo of our plane. for real! unfortunately it's taking me to tulsa, oklahoma. not somewhere a little more exotic, say burbank. or even ontario would be nice. when you travel by private jet you don't care if it's 3:35 in oklahoma and you are onstage at 8 pm. you don't care if you're plane hasn't left dc to pick you up in hartford at 3:35 pm oklahoma time. everyone just keeps telling you you have plenty of time. i guess this is why celebs always look so fresh faced when they get off the plane. everything is a breeze.

on a separate note....
if you're from new england and you have a straight edge hardcore band called black SS or how we are you should know one simple thing. don't wear your pixies shirt to a gig and then use that photo on your flyer trying to look hard. it doesn't really work. it's not tough.

i did hear that choke was into buffalo tom and is a hair dresser now though. so what do i know?

I loved her dog, her steady gaze, the chapter is closed

i found a grimmer airport than the american airlines SFO terminal. the american airlines BDL terminal in Hartford connecticut. whoa! we were supposed to be on united this morning (brand new terminal with, according to J, an einstein bagels and smoothie place) but the flight was cancelled cause the plane didn't make it to the airport last night due to weather. so after like 2 hours, at 6 am, of manuevering with pisano we ended up on american to tulsa via dallas. first class from dallas to tulsa!

oh well. really, it's the first hiccup of the whole tour and all it means is that the band won't get to soundcheck. but it's our first night opening for the black keys so it doesn't really matter.

look who came out to the show in nyc.
sommerstein

and tony "angry jesus" tee pee

we went out for my second night of too many beers (two). there's nothing better than listening to angry jesus go off about the music biz. the funny thing was he was totally mellow in the dressing room, totally disappointing some people. later we learned that he was keeping angry vibes away from louisa's yet to be born child. that's a pretty sweet thing to do.

corin and sharon. ex gf and ex neighbor.

corin just graduated from the MFA program at columbia! way to go. she is also the drummer in hot all girl space jam band effi briest.

oh yea! pinfield showed up to say hey to dino jr. he sounded just like he sounded on tv. super psyched.

who else did i see? oh yeah. jd and maya random run in on the corner of 3rd ave and 10th street. they had just seen knocked up. kanye west was in the theater with them crying at this unexpected tear jerker.

the day of the second show i took j to AOL in rockefeller center. He challenged David Cross to a guitar hero II challenge. totally amazing. david cross schooled j. j picked strutter. cross picked girl you really got me.
but j rocked the over the head action.

bro's for life

then it was an overnight drive to Toronto. I woke up and asked where we were, fretting that we were going to be late for our MTV appearance as we hadn't crossed the border yet. But we had! turns out the border guard was a dino fan and she pretty much waved us through after a cursory look at our passports.

kevin drew showed up to interview dinosaur. as you can see it was a gripping interview.

they passed the mic to one of these kids and the big question he had for the band was "why does the bass player play out of a guitar amp?" dude. come on.

this was awesome color's second to last show. their friend liz made pancakes while the band was playing! the fans were freaked/stoked.

i met this rad girl at urban outfitter. why rad? cause she has black flag bars on her neck. now that's not a big deal per se. what makes it a pretty epic black flag tattoo is that she got it when she was 16. it's on her neck. she was hot. and it says annihilate underneath.

hey! were taking a private jet to tulsa cause our flight was cancelled! i gotta go!

blowing up in my face

what a week! back to back good friend visits.
my day off in nyc was awesome and i am eagerly awaiting my next one in amherst, ma on tuesday.
first i stopped by bowery ballroom in the afternoon cause interpol were playing there that night and i knew that my bro's would be setting up for the show. everyone of them seemed stoked but a little tired of flying around the states playing lame radio festivals with shitty bands. they are bumming cause the band isn't using pisano as their travel agent anymore and whomever they are using is booking flights at the last minute and sticking the crew dudes in middle seats and making them connect through phoenix. weak. you gotta have pisano. the dude's there on saturday night at 3 am east coast time booking flights. you can't beat that. not even with coldplay's travel agent.
anyway...here's harley, sound engineer. we did the very first US interpol tour together in a van. on the last interpol tour we did together, 14 months later, he threatend to punch me in the face, seriously. he even threw his walkie across the bus for added effect. for multiple reasons i am glad he didn't do it.

you've seen lucas before. somehow i managed not to get a shot of his face. here he is working with harley. i almost punched him in the face on that interpol tour i just mentioned. on the worst day i ever had on tour in 7 years of doing this he pissed me off beyond belief. i woke up in paris with the worst sort of stomach flu imaginable. every symptom you've ever heard of or had was happening. guess where we were playing that night. coachella. so we had to fly 11 hours to LA and then drive 2 hours to the desert barely making it in time to set up. and i had to do that with the stomach flu. so after we checked in and were waiting to board i passed out at the gate. when i woke up i rolled over and knocked over like 8 empty heineken cans. and i was the last one to get on the plane. no one i was traveling with had bothered to wake me and lucas had garbage picked about 20 empty beer cans and placed them all around me on the floor so it looked like i was some passed out loser. then i had to get on the plane and all my fellow passengers just thought i was a pathetic, disgusting drunk. i don't think he's changed much cause last i heard he had put a for sale sign in the window of the interpol crew bus with directions to call the production managers cell phone. amazing.
here's the back of his head preparing to work his wattage magic.

and finally, ally. the only scottish person i know that was smart enough to move to LA. we hired him on the first tour as well. i am the only guy that the band didn't hire back! ally once had to make a snap decision between plugging daniel kessler's guitar lead back into the amp or grabbing him as he was falling off the stage. he chose to plug the guitar back in.

as i was leaving the band showed up for sound check. it was nice to see them for the first time in a couple of years. i hung out in the dressing room for a minute. it was even nicer when carlos d walked in and grandiosely declared to their tour manager "i mean. it certainly must be a violation of new york city health codes for a venue of this size to not have it's air conditioning on!" and at that moment i was stoked to be on tour with a band like dinosaur jr who just shrug their shoulder and only (barely) care if there is some perrier and smoked salmon in the fridge.

you'd think that if you were gonna go around looking like you were straight out of deadwood you'd be a little tougher and able to handle an afternoon in the 70's with no air conditioning!

then i cruised over to the new matador office to check it out. and i had to use the internet. what was i thinking? internet, new matador office? those two things hate each other lately. dave martin hooked me up with some vinyl and gave me a phone charger. and i since there was no internet action there i devolved 5 years and called 411 a bunch of times on my phone trying to find a phone number.

dave martin pretending to surf the internet at work.

then i walked back to the howard johnson's on houston street. that's where we stayed. my new hotel of choice in nyc. cheap in an unbelievable location. and juliet and roscoe swung by on her way to the williamsburg bridge to pick me up in the dying bronco II. it might not even exist at this moment as i think she got a new car this weekend. oldest friend on the books, 17 years this september.

guess who was in town? sara lund! i haven't seen her in probably 7 years or something. that's the second unwound - er i've seen on this tour. we saw justin in olympia. she's going to school to be a librarian now. so she volunteers at a library in portland. i wonder what i am going to go to school to be. it's weird being 35 and not knowing what you are going to be. people all around me are figuring it out though and that makes me psyched.

i had some time to kill before my super surprise meet up and went back to juliet's new apartment. she asked me if i thought she had too many plants. is that possible even? probably not especially when they are as rad and weird as hers. and probably not when you dote on them like a mom. i wish i could have plants. someone should invent a little travel size plant that you could take in your carry on baggage. i'd be into that.

i know you're out there
i know that space is not a race
weren't you invited?
dinosaur's in the middle of out there now. it sounds amazing.

totally special surprise. totally special people that know exactly what they are gonna be. they are gonna be THEEE skate rock band for the new century. No Age! randy and dean came to nyc to play a couple of shows and get new yorkers psyched on summer. i met them at a bar in brooklyn that served beers in cozies and i stayed out way too late for someone my age that is used to the domesticity that LA provides. and had one more beer than i should have had, which is to say that i had two beers.

No Age. do i talk about them enough? I don't think it's possible. what did we talk about? their unstoppable future and hardcore music. what else is their to talk about?

i guess i'll tell you about the friends i saw at the shows in nyc and toronto tomorrow. i don't want to blow minds all at once! i feel like i don't even miss LA right now. amazing.

have you ever spazzed out in bed?

i'm on my way to nyc. i don't know how far away we are; i haven't gptten out of bed yet. it's about 10 am. i don't really have a thing to do today but hang out. and that's all i plan on doing. i feel incredibly great today!
and the main reason, so far, is that Love or Perish have finally, finally posted a song. oh, it is so good!
total west coast spirit action. check it out. i am playing air drums in my bunk right now! there's no way i am anywhere near as good as molly but what a rad way to wake up today.
what else? oh yah.
all through the midwest, not only of the states but canada too, i have noticed that cities have been painting murals or whatever on the grey utility boxes at intersections (i think they hold the switching for the traffic lights). some in canada had buffalo and stuff like that. but this one from ann arbor is the best. i stared at it for about 5 minutes before i gave up trying to figure out how they did it. and i don't even have to. it makes me want to make a book.

i was gonna do that from ths tour. i thought i'd be lonlier than i am. i was planning on documenting it and making a book with photos and some things i had written outside of this blog. but i don't even feel that way as much as i thought i would and it feels great.

i eat thai food a lot with j. that's probably half the reason i feel okay. we talk about hardcore music. and lindsay lohan.