do not fuck around

I'm bruised and sunburnt, exhausted and frustrated, but I'm glad it's summertime even if it's still cold in SF (and it is almost always still cold in SF unless, of course, I am somewhere else or leaving to go somewhere else). I'll take the occasional overcast day though rather than the blistering Tenessee Bonnaroo heat. I lucked out and managed to catch a good day. I saw some TV on the Radio, hung out with my sister, and left before Phish brought their noodling cacophony to the drug-addled masses.

















A few days, and a few thousand miles earlier I woke up on a beach in San Diego (or Oceanside really). I was fighting off a vicious summer cold, but I held it together to do some tacky radio show on the beach, hit a few terrifying local army/navy/survivalist stores, barbecue a few steaks and watch the black keys. Now that was a solid work day, and one I'll be sure to recount the next time someone asks what I do for a living.















Somewhere along the way we made a late night wal mart stop. This is usually something that occurs between the hours of 2 and 4 AM, and under the influence. Usually a half dozen Heinekens and a pocket full of unspent per diems will prompt even the strongest of wills to meet back at the bus with fishing poles, nascar t-shirts and chewing tobacco. This time a few of us just decided to take the display bikes for a spin through the store. I ended up with something that had training wheels and streamers, but handled like a dream. We also failed to calculate the time, and seeing as it was 10:30, the store was packed with families still doing some leisurely shopping. They were only slightly taken aback by our behavior. I also, for some reason, came away with a rather large watermelon, presumably purchased at a low, low price.






















The next stop was in Phoenix or Tempe or really just some little speck or another inside of a warehouse in the middle of a vast desert in Arizona (which, in those conditions, is not unlike doing a show inside of an oven or a house on fire). I'm not entirely sure how the show went, but I'm pretty sure that afterwards we got caught trying to blow up the wal mart watermelon in the parking lot with the fireworks we bought a few days earlier.























From the stringent 'no blowing up things especially, but not limited to over-ripe fruits in public' restraints of Arizona, we were off to the lawless no man's land of El Paso. This is about as far as I got to Mexico this time around. Juarez inevitably leads to tears, sickness or scrambling for bail money, so I decided to stick stateside. That, and I wasn't interested in losing my head in some sort of drug related crossfire.















It's a good spot, thought. Certainly one of my favorite places in Texas (alongside Deep Elum, and outside of Texas), though I don't know that that says a whole lot.






















On our night off a few of us went out for Mexican food and came away a couple 44oz frozen margaritas. As you do. It truly was a heroic undertaking.













Then we went to go see Up in 3d. I think that just about everything is in 3d after a 44oz margarita, but at least you get the added effect of looking like Devo hanging out at the local mall with your sweet, futuristic douche goggles on.













It was also roasting, window smashing hot in El Paso, but I'd imagine you knew that already.













We did some show, again at a warehouse, and again on something that looked like a moonscape if the moon were 108 degrees and smelled vaguely of tamales.






















The production was a shambles, and I spent a good part of my day covering up massive pornographic clown tapestries that were hung on the stage, but the crowd was pretty fired up. At the end of the night all that was left was some blood, confetti and lots of girl's shoes and earrings. I suppose I could interject a cat fight reference here, but those girls were no joke, and I'd hate to cross them, so I'll leave it be.






















Now I'm home for a few more days, and then Euro madness begins with a quick trip to Croatia. I think I'm going to drag some folks to the Shellac show tomorrow night since I find that I'm not punished enough by loud, angular guitar music lately.