we woke up in Bozeman, grabbed our shit, and left The Funeral and the Twilight sleeping at the house in the mess of our garbage.
i talked to two guys who were driving from Alaska to Arizona and…maybe Colorado to go back to college. they seemed moronic from the ride and sat and stared at their cooler full of rotting lunch meat – what would certainly happen to our own cooler of cheese and deluxe veal hot dogs in due time.
i also found this fantastic piece of artwork sitting on the wall. it’s irritating going out to these little cities that i’m likely not going to end up in and seeing all sorts of memorable, picture-worthy art and knowing it was probably just some stoned kid in his first year at the local community college. no doubt they will grow up to be boring and only chat about the times they did drugs and made art in the event that they have to get a job at a restaurant. but, this is how it goes.
we went to a coffee shop and joel spit this out. i assure you, it was more horrifying in person. joel had obtained my illness. so we went to some coffee shop and sat around looking like dirty mongrels who live in a van. Max was wearing a Brain Tumors tye-dye shirt and had committed to wearing the Mickey Mouse mesh trucker hat by then, which didn’t help us except in the way that most people didn’t want to talk to us.
In Bozeman, Dan also found a bird that he liked. it was small and colorful. so Dan no longer hates all birds except for raptors. this is relevant to four people reading this blog, but to fill you in, outside of Kansas City Dan stood outside a gas station unleashing a furious diatribe against all winged things that are not food. so this was a big thing for him. Joel, on the other hand, is attracted to women that look like birds. Pat has no opinion on birds.
we went to a sleazy thrift store run by god-fearing old ladies. i made jokes about not showering for months to the staff members while i was in the changing room. they did not laugh. not even nervously. i left with a white cardigan and a reaffirmation that i am getting fat and old. pat left with a new womans jacket and a reaffirmation that he is a skinny queer asshole. i mean that in the most complimentary manner as possible and hope some day i can be a skinny and queer asshole. but i am too bald. there was also a puppy in the thrift store.
Max bought a Whitney Houston cassette which was rather decent. we listened to it in the van as we drove. joel sneezed in my face and i washed it with hand sanitizer which was one of the most uncomfortable things that ive ever felt while not on LSD. before we left we went to a gas station where i bought a bag of ice that stated “ICE IS FOOD” on it. which prompted me to start yelling and pounding on the counter until the woman at the register agreed to hold the bag up so i could take a picture of it. other patrons in the store were also excited by the fact that ICE IS FOOD.
the drive to Missoula was very long. i took some pictures. here is a song you can listen to while looking at the pictures and reading the next passages.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shYpM6a62vs
the van also started smoking, just like max, pat, joel, and dan.
we also stopped at a truck stop that was adjacent to a thai restaurant in the middle of nowhere. i asked them for pad kee mao and the chef came out to talk to me. a real genuine asian man in Montana. he was missing his back molars and he explained to me that everyone in Montana are a bunch of hicks so he doesn’t make pad kee mao.
leaving the thai place, dan asked a curious question.
“hey, do you think there’s ever been Egg Roll porn?”
“what”
“i dunno, just came into my head. egg roll porn.”
“ill look it up on my phone.”
what i found on the phone was incredible. not the porn, which was just some…gay porn. but one of the banner advertisements where the dude in the ad looked JUST LIKE DAN. like, if there was a bizarro gay porn dan.
here is straight dan for reference:
look, sorry this stuff is boring. but it is important that you understand what tour is. it is boring. not always, but most of it. because most of it you are crammed into a van with whitney houston tapes. you used to not even have punk rock iPhones to get by. you just had to sit there. maybe you could refresh Myspace on your phone, but that was just as boring as looking at your feet and smelling farts.
speaking of farts, this is the look on someone’s face when they realize that they have shit their pants. ol’ Max’s luck finally ran out, forcing us to stop and have him run to the shitter which he described as a ten foot, cavernous, black hole of death. after shitting he also threw up in the bathroom because of the smell.
he cleaned up and continued onward, which is all you can generally do after shitting yourself. it is okay because Max saw me shit myself at Beer Fest in rural Wisconsin.
we also saw this moron.
we got to Missoula and chatted with our pal, Colin, who plays in a band called Skin Flowers along with marvelous Nick. both of them are from Minneapolis. Nick is best known for his mustache and Colin is best known by me from being Rory (driver for the St. Louis Chains mini-tour)’s brother and the time he kept screaming Shakespeare plays at Akimbo when they opened for The Blood Brothers. The Plain White T’s, best known for being a bunch of losers with poor songwriting abilities, opened the show. We will revisit this show in a later post.
Colin also played in Vampire Hands, a great Minneapolis band that claimed a lot of influence from The Red Krayola (i believe). Colin probably will hate this video and will also want people to know that he has lost weight since this video.
Tom, another Minneapolis transplant that I never knew very well, was also in attendance for laughing and drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. He is as notable as the other two.
then we fucked off to the VIP dinner party for true punks only.
according to my notes, we also saw a blind jogger as we were getting into town. we ate pulled pork sandwiches, pet dogs, and met local swordsmiths. we met with The Funeral and the Twilight, watched some local diaper wearing garage rock band that i didn’t catch the name of, and saw Big Eyes, who are one of the most impressive live bands that i’ve seen in a while.
unfortunately, the rest of Brain Tumors did not see Big Eyes because they were busy getting their beauty rest or something, so it was me and the TFATT gang.
we left the record store where the bands were playing and went over to The Top Hat, a rustic dimly lit bar with a huge stage area.
we watched The Best Westerns, a group of guys wearing pearl-snap button western shirts, playing what i remember to be slide guitar and maybe some other uhhhh instruments. or maybe a steel lap guitar. i don’t know, it was some shit with some pearl snap button western shirts. they were good, though. also a band called Unnatural Helpers were very good, too. i bought their tape after haggling with one of them over the insanity of selling a cassette for $5 and i’m glad i did. because i don’t like the tape. from this video, it reminds me of Urge Overkill. fuck that. man watch that Urge Overkill video. the singer looks like Peter Tagtgren from Hypocrisy.
X-Files lookin’ motherfuckers.
final notes from the evening:
– some annoying overly energetic fucker ran into the crowd dressed like a high school coach and sang the Missoula equivalent to Peaches songs. i think maybe there was a girl with a guitar. i dont know, i got yelled at for standing on the stage and taking a picture even though the “act” was on the floor. i wrote “i have to take a shit. at least it’s loud.” those were my only notes.
– Dan Deacon played, who Max was really excited to see. i didnt get it and i felt like i was watching a gigantic game of Simon Says with electronic music.
i also threw a beer into the crowd in front of a Total Fest volunteer, making me feel like a jerk for a few minutes. i think i also ate some garbage from a taco truck outside.
the next morning, we went to breakfast. in the corner was Dan Deacon eating with people who i presumed to be his friends. there was a baby. the baby was a fucking baby, so it was a loud blob of skin that didn’t understand anything in the world and could not take the time to do so. however, Dan Deacon, who i found to be esoteric and boring the night before, completely silenced this child through the use of some of the most ethereal sounding mouth-synthesizer noises ever. it was incredible.
