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tour diary – saturday 03.22 – philadelphia, pa

this show was a little bit weird since it was a basement show right before a keg party at my friend hannah’s house. the show got set up that way because we didn’t really know anyone from philadelphia and i remembered that hannah had offered to help us out with a show when i first met her when we played with her band, “the insides” in little rock in january. it turns out that the house that she moved into was also the house of ryan’s friend kelsey from the ‘natti and my friend alicia’s (who played bass in my high school band fallout) boyfriend. it’s a small world.

so we got into town and the first thing i realized is that, damn, there are a lot of punks in philadelphia. i mean, i know everybody talks about how it’s like the east coast version of portland, but i never realized it. just walking around hannah’s west philly neighborhood, we ran into lots of people. after hannah showed us around a little bit, we went into the kitchen where ryan cooked up some of his thai peanut-based pasta. it was the first of many delicious stir-fries that we would eat on tour. the addition of mock duck from the asian market made it even better. just as we were about to eat, the good good showed up (without a van, they had taken the chinatown bus from nyc) and it was awesome to see them again. we also ran into tom from gainesville, who i had met last summer when he was visiting columbus and had recently transplanted himself in philadelphia. again, a very small world. after we were gorged on food, we played the show. the good good was awesome, i thought they were better than they had been on our first tour. they had added another drummer which made things interesting and had some different songs. they also covered this panther party song which is amazing. it’s a perfect song and they play it well. it was a lot of fun. we played and it was a little wierd, but went ok. after the show we hung out at the party and i got to talk to a bunch of really nice kids including some kid named mike who used to live in the legion back in the day, and matt’s friend natalie and her friend tom. oh yeah, before the show, i had the pleasant surprise of answering the door only to run into katrina. katrina is jimmy turri’s partner and a frequent visitor to columbus. it was nice to see a familiar face in a town where i didn’t know people particularly well. i’m usually pretty shy, so one thing i like about playing shows is that it forces you talk to people. so, i had some nice conversations with people that night.

right after we played, i looked up from packing up my stuff to see alicia! we had talked on the phone earlier that day, but unfortunately, she wasn’t able to come see the show because her band “x’s x’s” was playing at ladyfest philly. still, it was awesome to see her again and to talk to her even though it was only for a little while. she gave me a kinderegg which i gave to bz to eat, but i kept the toy which was this anthropromorphic joystick named “joey stick”. sweet!

will found some people with some common interests but not before having a strange encounter with some guy who insisted that he and bz sign his copy of the cd. weird. i think will also said something about him saying something like, “when you played all i could see was bz, and that was ok with me.” yuck. will also tried to make a second dumpster date to go to a fresh samantha’s juice/smoothie dumpster, but after we discovered that the dumpster was all the way across the river in new jersey, it was decided that it’s bounty would have to wait for the next trip to philly.

eventually, everyone else seemed to disappear, so i headed to the van and fell asleep. the next morning i walked to the show and ran into pete, natalja, and andy who were getting tofu for tofu scrambler. i got some delicious birch beer and when i got back to the house, we made some great scrambler and pancakes. it was good.

after eating, we all piled into the mutant for the drive up to providence.

tour diary – friday 03.21 – allentown, pa

it was the best of shows, it was the worst of shows – a hackneyed description yes, but the most accurate one of which i can think. i should have known that things were going to be a little less than cool when one of the members of one of the bands had an altercation with the house’s neighbor. the guy was beligerent and angry because he accused someone of pissing in his driveway and accosted brodog band guy about it. while i’m sure the encounter was unpleasant, bro dog’s response wasn’t so cool either. “i thought he was going to kill me, i would have fucked him up … that’s why i carry a knife.” and when he informed his bandmate about the encounter i was terrified of bro dog mob justice when his buddy said “duuude, that’s fucked up, let’s go find that guy.”

the first two bands were really lame. i know a lot of kids aren’t so down with the melodic hardcore that’s labeled “emo” these days by many, but I have a pretty high tolerance level for it. these bands were lame not because of their sound but because they were shitty people. so shitty, in fact, that even i feel that i am in a position to assign that label. during the first band’s set the guitar player lost his pick and got seriously agitated and had a little mid-set squabble with the singer. he got so angry that he eventually shouted some pretty choice explitives at the singer. when one of the kids watching the show asked why he didn’t just use another pick, the guitarist replied “this one was custom made” and “if i don’t find my pick i’m not playing”. it got better when before one song the singer sneered, “this song is for all the guys with girlfriends … i am sooo sorry” and later “we’re going to get naked and you’re all welcome to join us,” which mikeal informed me was not said in the hey, we’re going to run around naked and crazy in the streets (which i’m ok with), but in the staring at the teenage girls “how you doin'” sort of way.

the next band to play was even worse. before their second song, the singer announced. “this song is about spies. it’s for our bass player because he’s a spy and a fucking homo”. i went upstairs. i guess you can lead a jock to hardcore but you can’t make him drink. jordan talked to those guys after they played and told them how that kind of talk was unacceptable. the guys in the band sort of wavered and said that “it was just their way of saying ‘jerk'” and that people shouldn’t be so “pc”. fuck them. i’m so sick of people being down on being pc. it’s not about being elitist or correct. it’s about having empathy for other people and treating them with respect and trying to shake all the prejudices that we’ve been brought up with in our culture.

the other thing that really bothered me about both of the bro-dog bands is that they left with all their friends after they played and I absolutely hate that. when jordan told them not to honk their horns and to try to be less noisy in the interest of neighbor relations they completely ignored them. enough shit talking – the bad was soon to be replaced anyway.

a band from nyc/philly called “x the owl” played next and they were interesting, energetic, and sincere. they proved that people trying to do interesting things musically and playing sincerely will always be more interesting and entertaining than buildups, breakdowns, jerking your guitar back and forth and jumping off the drums. the kids in this band were some of the nicest guys ever too. one of them was a teacher, another a law student and it was interesting to talk to them about how they balanced playing music with the other things in their lives. we ran into one of the guys in new york and he gave us a copy of their cd and a mix tape! what a swell bunch of guys! check them out if you get a chance.

we played next and by that time more kids had arrived including the kids in “kiwi” and “the lazer” and this kid nick who grew up with jimmy turri. so we played and of course it was rough because we hadn’t practiced together for weeks, but it was amazingly fun. people danced, and clapped, and had a generally good time.

“kiwi” played next, and this band is awesome. politically minded pop-punk with keyboards instead of guitars. i had heard some of their songs on a mix tape and was really into it, and seeing them play live was no disappointment. tons of energy and that nice pop/new-wavy edge that the keyboards bring but without any of the usual hipsterness that seems to accompany keyboards. they even did a “fifteen” cover. the kids were all extremely nice when we hung out with them afterwards.

“the lazer” played last and despite equipment troubles and a little sloppiness were brash and energetic. i really enjoyed it. after the show, one of the guys in the band offered to cut my hair into a mohawk and I obliged to make will and ryan shut up. I don’t really mind, but it’s funny that my hair always ends up in a mohawk on tour. we tried to spike it up with glue, but the hair was two heavy and it ended up in sort of a dread-hawk which wasn’t so cool. we hung out for a while and then when i went to bed, will went on a dumpster date with jordan and dumpstered cookies! yay!

we slept in late and after making some food, saying goodbye to jordan and kyle, and stopping at the record store made our on the short drive to philadelphia.

i don’t know what to say about the fact that our country is about to go to war other than that i am very, very sad. there are a million good, intellectual, rational arguments for why this is a bad idea, but for me, the human toll, the loss of life and the brutality of war is what frightens and saddens me. i don’t like to think that violence is ever a good strategy, but i could be convinced otherwise. the thing that makes me really angry is that it doesn’t seem like the president or his administration even once considered the human cost of a war. he didn’t acknowledge the implications of war, to us soldiers, to iraqi soldiers, to iraqi civillians, to us citizens in the wake of terrorist retaliation. it seemed like he never even gave peace a chance. i can live with someone saying, “i hear what you have to say, but i disagree”, but to be ignored entirely is a slap in the face. i don’t know what to say. when our country goes to war, “no war” doesn’t mean a whole lot. i guess all i want is peace. i want the war to be over as soon as possible. i want the us out of the middle east as soon as possible. i want my fellow americans to have the backbone to say, “yes, i support our troops, but i think the administration is wrong about this. let’s get it over with as soon as possible and see if we can repair the damage”. i don’t want unilateralism. what could be more beutiful than the idea of a world of neighbors. that we can resolve things peacefully, that we can live together, that there are more important things in life than living in fear, in worrying about preemption. please don’t make a world where we can’t live our lives with any meaning. i’m not asking this of the government because they aren’t listening. i’m asking this of my neighbors, of my community, of my family. in our own lives, in our own conflict, this isn’t the way we resolve things. we don’t go down the street and attack our neighbors – not because they don’t deserve it – but because we realize such barbarism isn’t worth it. for all the kids – we’re about to go on tour – what do you tell kids who are already politicized? of course they don’t support the war. all i can think of is that we need to appreciate what we have. we need to appreciate our family, our friends, our passions because there are people who don’t have that privilege and soon, we might not either. in a world where life might not be worth living maybe the best protest we can voice is to make our lives mean somehting. to treat each other as individuals, as humans, as brothers and sisters, in the way that governments and nations can’t. to make beauty and passion, to build things, to hold things together. i don’t know what else i can do.

interesting analysis on the iraq war from a former us diplomat

I just feel we’re entering a new sort of ugly phase where America attempts to be a unilateral power. But we do not realize that the United States was the chief beneficiary of an international system that found alternatives to violence — the idea that the United Nations provided hope for peaceful resolution. We have just told [the world] that that’s not longer operative, and that violence is the last, best resort. And I’m afraid we’ll be victims of that violence far more than we are the beneficiaries of that violence.

well said. this interview is pretty amazing. it really articulates the reasons why a war with iraq is a bad idea and does so from the standpoint of someone who seems to genuinely believe in america’s best interests and have an understanding of the international implications of the administration’s foreign policy decisions.

the article is available at http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/03/19/_kiesling/index.html

interesting analysis on the iraq war from a former us diplomat

I just feel we’re entering a new sort of ugly phase where America attempts to be a unilateral power. But we do not realize that the United States was the chief beneficiary of an international system that found alternatives to violence — the idea that the United Nations provided hope for peaceful resolution. We have just told [the world] that that’s not longer operative, and that violence is the last, best resort. And I’m afraid we’ll be victims of that violence far more than we are the beneficiaries of that violence.

well said. this interview is pretty amazing. it really articulates the reasons why a war with iraq is a bad idea and does so from the standpoint of someone who seems to genuinely believe in america’s best interests and have an understanding of the international implications of the administration’s foreign policy decisions.

the article is available at http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/03/19/_kiesling/index.html

a frightening personal metaphor for global affairs

a poem based on a true event that happened to me tonight:

on the evening that my country went to war, a kid kicked me in the leg as he rode past me on his bike. “why’d you kick me in the leg?” i yelled at him. “you were in the way,” he yelled back.

dissent tickets

people have cautioned me against unfairly stereoyyping columbus police

contact info for representitives for boiiling springs
Todd Russell Platts (202) 225-5836
Rick Santorum (202) 224-6324
Arlen Spector (202) 224-4254

Dixie Chicks Slammed For Bush Gibe

from http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/03/14/entertainment/main544077.shtml

The Dixie Chicks are drawing criticism from country music fans for remarks singer Natalie Maines made about President George W. Bush during a recent performance in London.

Maines told the audience earlier this week, “Just so you know, we’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas.”

Angry phone calls flooded Nashville radio station WKDF-FM on Thursday, some demanding a boycott of the Texas trio’s music.

The group released a statement saying they’ve been overseas for several weeks and “the anti-American sentiment that has unfolded here is astounding. While we support our troops, there is nothing more frightening than the notion of going to war with Iraq and the prospect of all the innocent lives that will be lost.”

In a separate statement Thursday, Maines said, “I feel the president is ignoring the opinion of many in the U.S. and alienating the rest of the world. My comments were made in frustration, and one of the privileges of being an American is you are free to voice your own point of view.”

The Dixie Chicks will kick off a U.S. tour in support of their multiplatinum album “Home” on May 1 in Greenville, South Carolina. The group’s hits include “Wide Open Spaces,” “Ready to Run” and “Landslide.”

power click in xemacs
a “power click” is holding down the shift button while clicking. shift-clicking the middle button in speedbar will cause the file to be opened in a new frame