Anticipation

Next Tuesday I am off to Euro-land for a few weeks. I am really looking forward to it. We start in Dusseldorf at some mega-dome supporting Pearl Jam, and then begin the annual summer festival madness. Some of our crew have never been through the European summer run, and for some of us it's old hat. It should be good. We have a couple shows with Mogwai and Aereograme in Germany, the Accelerator Festival in Sweden with Isis (oh yeah) and TV on the Radio, and Werchter in Belgium where we are sandwiched between Mastodon and Metallica on the main stage. It is all what you make of it. This year we have our big, plastic tubs filled with wellington boots, soccer balls, tents and sunscreen out with us. I am taking out some really cool, new lights. I am going to Portugal for the first time. Apparently Wu-Tang is playing in Dublin, and it's all over in a few weeks. The light at the end of the tunnel is a family visit to SF next month, and then I go back to Japan for Summersonic.















Last night was a perfectly foggy night in SF. After a clear sunny day of running around downtown getting ready for tour (I bought an ipod on craigslist, and some non-black clothes at Out of the Closet) it was a welcome change. I hit Citrus Club on Haight for some noodles, and escaped the cold indoors.

















A couple days ago I took a ride up to the Marin Headlands, a spot of land just across the Golden Gate Bridge where lots of people surf, and tons of school children make the grand pilgrimage know as 'science camp.' I don't know too much about it.


















It is really incredible, and you can hit downtown with a rock from there.

















It's crawling with all manner of natural beauty like, say, this rock.


















Or this deer.

















Like much of the Bay area, the headlands was used to the paramilitary extent of guarding our coastline, often with very large guns. I didn't quite expect to stumble onto a dormant missle site.















It's pretty incredible to think that such an amazing part of the country was/is so heavily littered with nuclear weapons. This little bastard here, part of the Nike Missle project, held a 40-megaton nuclear device, roughly four times the size of that dropped on Hiroshima. Now that's a happy little Wednesday afternoon.
















Afterwards, to make myself feel better about the overwhelming threat of violence in the world, I went to Joe's Tacos in Mill Valley and had some Ensanada fish tacos. It worked like a charm, and now I am blissfully unaware of the threat I pose to the world.