Day 4
I opted to ride with the Petrojvic brothers. Charles wanted to leave right after the show rather than get up early.
One of my favorite drives is Oregon through northern California.
It was hard to sleep in the truck but I got a few good naps in. We pulled over to a quiet road near Mt. Shasta at dawn to sleep but because it was so pretty we stayed awake.
We listened to a Dune audiobook for most of the trip. My voice was wrecked from the night before so I kept quiet.
When we got to SF, I stayed with my friends Rich and Jenn. We ordered pizza and played video games. Then, we watched the Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work. It was a nice way to spend the afternoon.
I like Slims. They made us dinner and provided beer and snacks. The security was really nice, too...
Category Monsters of Accordion 10
We left late to get to Eugene. The first band was sound checking when we got there. They’re called Aeon Now – Trombone, glockenspiel, banjo, violin, accordion, washboard, bass drum, snare, cymbal. They dress like the Upper Crust but with cooler make up. They were excellent.
This was the most eclectic crowd of the tour. I could play to this crowd every night of my life. They weren’t better than any other crowds but the ages went from one to eighty. That’s a true all-ages show. I appreciate older people coming to clubs. I made a new fan who was in her late sixties.
One of the other things I love about Eugene is the way people dress. There’s an individualism that shuns the conventional hipster boundary...
Day 3
We had a late start leaving for Portland. Renee sang Christmas parody songs like the ones I used to read in Mad Magazine. Then she sang Weird Al’s “Christmas at Ground Zero” for me and Jason. She’s a joy.
Kennedy School is a great, great place. So much attention went into making the former school into an amazing complex of bars, restaurants and theaters. The venue we were in had a shitload of couches. It was an old auditorium converted into a movie theater converted for us into a music venue. Me and the Petrojvics drank at a tiny bar they dubbed Hogwarts.
The crowd was great. So nice. From the stage it looked like the seating for the Muppet Movie...
Day 2
Jason and I went to pick up t-shirts near the airport. They look really good. Jason is better at telling stories than I am. He told me some good ones about hooking up, epic stories that fiction couldn’t hold.
We picked up the Monsters of Accordion t-shirts and they looked really good. I like watching machines make things and they had one that screenprinted the tees.
Jason and Renee went to Petosa’s to take back an accordion. I hung out with Chris Weber.
We ate Vietnamese then went back to his house which was built by the 3rd most powerful man in Washington state. He’d built it with his dad in the 70’s. He’s a state senator and Chris’ landlord. It looks like an old national park building. There’s a small house outside that the senator keeps...
12/14/10 – Day 1
Flew Delta. It was an old-timey plane that still had the “No Smoking” lights that turn on and off. They showed Eat Pray Love on the aisle televisions. I didn’t want to watch it but had nothing else to do. I was too tired to read or write. So, I made myself sit through it. I unplugged my earphones within the last 20 minutes. It was that bad. Even when I saw The Postman I had to finish it. (The book The Postman is much better than the movie and the movie strays from the book). This movie was like looking at a Rothko. It just pissed me off. At least Rothko didn’t have someone looking over him to make his painting more appealing to movie audiences. Just restaurant ones. There’s really no reason for me to get upset. I do admire Rothko for making me upset.
Then, I...