Playing Denton was magic. That’s my town I lived in the longest in my life. That’s the town I tried to leave but couldn’t. That’s the town I started Corn Mo in.

It was perfect to play with Paul Slavens and Hand of Onan. Paul Slavens is the new Victor Borge. NO lie. He and Jeffrey Barnes of Brave Combo played together and he ruled that stage.

Hand of Onan is Wally from Cornhole and Hotlink Records and Ted from Brutal Juice and The Banes and a really good drummer.

All my rowdy friends came out and some got shitfaced and some soberly gave testament to tears that were shed during my show. Man, I missed Denton at that bar. It was a golden night. After, I hung out with the Angel of 2001 and Amber of 2003 and Cody and Melissa and Jason Asphalt. I drank a lot of cheap wine and listed to Tripping Daisy and watched Amber of 2003 push Jason into a table and break the shit out of it-for telling her joke. She’s hot and strong.

Fuckin’ Bubba slept. Long live the 2bc.

The next day, my ride for the tour, Luke, goes: “Denton’s cool.”

I got so fucking stressed getting to the Austin City Limits show. We couldn’t find the parking lot and had 30 minutes to get to the stage. I jumped out of the van and walked. A guy in a cart saw me and goes,

“I should give you a ride . . . but I won’t.”

Then, I remembered the festival told me I was supposed to get a cart ride.

“Hey, man, can you give me a ride to the stage? I go on in twenty minutes.”

“We can’t do that. We got a lot of work to do. Your stage is only 100 feet away.”

It was real close. I saw a few people waiting by the stage which was the crowd I was expecting. After I started playing it got bigger. Some guys had signs that requested songs, Corby and Dave Lane from The Ticket showed up, a girl from high school came, and a bunch of other folks showed up.

It’s hard playing festivals because there is no end to where you throw your presence. It just goes on. How far do I play to? Shit, I don’t know.

The coolest part was the 20 minute line to say “Hello” or sign people’s programs. That was real nice.

I hung out with my high school friend, Audra, and her husband, Blake. It was real nice.

I didn’t get to hang out with my old Bible-study leader, Gary. He’s a good friend. I fell asleep right in front of him while he tried to teach me the good book, once. He’s good people.

It feels real good to get your friends free beer and I did. Drinking free is the best gift to give an entertainer.

We stayed at Tracy Miller’s house that night. She played in Lithium Xmas in Dallas and married a Slovak named, Stano. They went to the bar and I was exhausted and ended up hanging out with Stano in his studio.

His paintings are real good. A lot of commie themes and drinkin’ and naked ladies. There’s more to them but I’ll write that essay later. He was really into Laibach and tried to get a passport to their one-world state. Instead he got a green card to work in Austin. Laibach is fucking awesome. Stano’s livin’ the life.

I’m starting to draw again. I’ll show you.

Dallas was bad ass. Whenever I play Dallas now I get teary-eyed. Your friends who rooted for you in Dallas show up real proud. I curse a lot during the show because I’m a little nervous and I’m not good at not cursing, yet. Some dads gave their kids earmuffs when I started, “You guys are gonna make me fuckin’ cry.” And then my dirty-word, dirty-word spewed even more. After shows like that I feel like I’ve run 5 miles. It feels real good. And seeing the Spree in Dallas was the same feeling. Everyone is proud of them, too. After seeing Tripping Daisy all those years and then seeing this new creation that’s blowing up made all of them proud.

Oh, I got this email from my friend, Halee that sums this entry up:

Jon…don’t know how often you actually get to check e-mail but I had to write and suck up to you for a second. Friday night at the Granada? You were G.R.E.A.T. Obviously I have been a Corn Mo fan a long time, and I thought you were way great before, but holy crap, I don’t know what you’ve done or if you sold your soul to the devil or what…but your show was the slickest and the most well-oiled machined-runnin’ performance I’ve seen you do ever.

And I got goosebumps and laughbumps and I’m real proud of you, mister.

mister mister,

halee

That’s why I play shows.

I’m in Asheville right now. Since Denton the Polyphonic tour has been on hold until the 30th in Toronto. There was a death in the family. God bless them.

We pulled in last night at a Walmart and used their facilities and slept in the van in their parking lot. We were in Chattanooga where I played an instore at Chad’s.

There were five people in that store and I rocked as best I could. This is the kind of tour I love-the kind that turns into adventure. We had spent the first day after the Denton show in New Orleans where we were going to work on getting last minute shows but ended up drinking at Lafitte’s. Which was fine because surrender is good sometimes. Then we did a lot of “touristy” stuff- like drinking more and going into the places that tourists go in and out of.

The second day of New Orleans was a little depressing cause alcohol is a depressant and I wanted to get back on the road.

I got to hang out with my friend Lorraine, though. She let us stay at her place. She’s real good folk. She makes her living at stiltwalking and makes really cool things. She’s in the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus as Dr. Sloat. Her sister is Philomena. She’s got Belgian ancestry just like Van Damme.