Tour 9

We drove through the night out of Albuquerque and detoured on our way to Phoenix so we could go see the Grand Canyon. By all accounts it was really worth it. The weird thing is that because it's so high up, we were really cold on the way there (I was wearing a sweatshirt for the first time on this whole tour). Both the coldest and hottest temperatures we've hit were in Arizona. I have really enjoyed the diversity of the landscape down here, and the dry clean air.

The bizarre thing about the Grand Canyon is that it has been so extensively photographed and documented that it really cannot be experienced in a primal, non-simulated way. To compound the issue, when you actually get there and look at it, it literally looks fake. The distances are so huge that the eye loses all sense of depth, and the landscape seems like a Hollywood matte painting. It's iconic, and can't be experienced apart from its place in the popular consciousness. Any picture taken at that site has been taken before, and the continuous proliferation of these copies reinforces the simulation. We remember the look of the place and are familiar with it even before we ever go there, so our experience of it is always mediated by the model (photograph) preceding its instantiation (the experience of being there). So the two might be indistinguishable, if it weren't for the $25 entry fee.

I'm in California right now, for the first time ever. We're staying in Irvine, south of L.A., with one of Brett's friends. Our Tijuana show was cancelled because the venue was shut down, so we have today off and a show in South Gate tomorrow.

I was curious to see what L.A. was really like in person --- and to be honest, it is already stressing me out. It's a sprawling beast: a filthy, gridlocked, tangled web of strip malls and air-conditioned boxes for the middle class. A consuming amoeba which is engineered for excess --- impossible to walk anywhere, millions of people seeking shelter from the smog in sealed cars on clogged freeways. It's like New Jersey on speed, and with unlimited money and no clouds.

Tour 8

Change of pace --- there aren't really words to describe this place, so I won't try. We drove 14 hours from Corpus Christi, TX to Las Cruces, NM (starting at 2am central time), and it was one of the most sublime experiences of my life. It was cool and dry and beautiful and I saw the sunrise in the desert. I chose not to photograph it.

Tour 7

1: Brothers and Sisters opening the show at Cave9 in Birmingham, Alabama. A brand new band with a ton of potential. Also a great venue.

2: Fleur de Live, the venue in Monroe, Louisiana. It is extremely hot and humid here. We slept in this venue and I'm now stealing wireless from a neighboring building in order to post this.

The heat is making everyone lethargic and somewhat irritable. I feel like my brain is melting and I've somehow become 93802347 times stupider in the last three days --- I can't think or summon any motivation to do anything. We are headed to Dallas today, where it is supposed to be 104 degrees by 3pm.

Tour 6

It is really hot down here. I took a shower in this "outdoor fixture" this morning after sleeping in a barn in some sort of anarchist/hippie commune (Gainesville, FL). There was a dog shut in the loft with us, and it turned out she had fleas. Bummer. This shower consists of a pipe pumping groundwater, but it was better than stewing in body juices from the preceding night, and required to check for fleas.

I'm in Tampa right now. I've noticed an increasing lethargy as we've moved south, it seems like I can't get anything done and I just want to sit around all day. It's probably the heat. I've lost 6 pounds since our two days off in Philly last week, but most likely my body is just adapting and becoming more efficient.

The skate shots (you can see me reflected in the glass on the first picture) were taken in Myrtle Beach, SC on 7/11, one of the most brutally hot days so far. We got to the venue at 10:30am, so it made sense to just go soak in the ocean for a couple hours... but even that wasn't really beating the heat, so we went to a local mall and saw Superman Returns at a matinee before the show.

Tour 5

This was another glimpse of the sublime, an experience completely at odds with what one would expect from a tour of America's seediest venues. Since we had the day off, staying outside Washington DC, our friend took us to a swimming hole nearby. We had to walk over a mile through mud and scrub brush to get there, but what a beautiful place... swimming in clean river water, no cell phone service, no traffic noise, perfect weather.

Today the all-encompassing surreality didn't matter. It was like that dream that you don't want to wake up from when your alarm goes off in the bone-chilling cold of January and you want to skip work. It was a small taste of paradise --- not in the hyper-real TV culture sense, where it's all about tropical beaches, booze, and self-pampering --- this was a small taste of perfect unity, perfect comfort which is not insular, a particle of time where everything is balanced and right and at peace. It inspired a playful and childlike wonder.

This made me realize that I truly am living a fantasy right now, doing something that literally almost no one gets to do. While part of me is still feeling the ache of homesickness, another part of me is filled with gratitude and reveling in the joyful absurdity of this entire summer. How can I possibly complain? I have enough to eat, a roof over my head more often than not, travel companions who have plenty of color if not much grace, and I am presented daily with the splendor and majesty of creation. Wherever I go, I am watched over and attended to, not just a meager portion given, but piled on and overflowing --- a real mess of delight.

This is not to "shortcircuit the vicissitudes" of essentially being homeless for two months, there are plenty of trials. But however acute that pain may be --- physical, emotional, or otherwise --- right now the most real and tangible quantity is wonder.

Little things: the DC show went really well, which was a needed confidence booster. We played TMA-1 and it sounded the best it has yet. All the bands were good, which almost never happens. I am also rediscovering Brian Eno's Ambient 1: Music for Airports, which I'm listening to as I type this. It's genius (I had forgotten). Tomorrow we're driving to Murfreesboro, NC, which will take us right through Zuni, VA, the town I lived in until I was 8. Only about 50 people live there, most of whom are different from the people I remember. I'll still stop and take pictures, but I suspect that the surreality factor will only increase. Memory is volatile in these kinds of situations, and prone to excess.

waterfalls / cirrocumulus clouds / sunlight / air-drying / Music for Airports / quietness / waking dreams

Tour 4

One of the best things about tour is the amazing bathrooms. This particular shining example is in downtown Baltimore, Maryland. We played there last night, to an audience of one promoter, two bands, and a barmaid. It was a rough time. The hanging cloud of personal issues over some in our group doesn't really help. On the plus side, we stayed with a friend, whose roommate made us pancakes this morning.

We spent the afternoon record shopping and hanging out in Towson, Maryland. I bought a Boards of Canada EP, simply because it had a remix of Dayvan Cowboy on it, and it turns out the whole thing is really superb. Best use of 8 bucks in a long time... highly recommended.

Right now I'm in Washington DC, stealing wireless from a neighboring building. If we can snag a place to stay, it would be nice to spend our day off tomorrow perusing the Smithsonian museums or the National Gallery of Art (since everything in DC is free... which is ideal when you're destitute and homeless). Sometimes, "highbrow" pleasures can be somewhat comforting or relieving when you're constantly exposed to the dregs of society.

Tour 3

This is from Providence, RI on Saturday night. To see more of this nonsense (and lots of flying hair), go here.

Unprocessed:
It was nice to be back in Philadelphia for a serendipitous Sabbath. Our 7/2 show in Brooklyn fell through so we drove home through the night after the Providence show. Being at home is completely surreal, especially since I know I'll be leaving again in a couple of days. Spending the afternoon with petite-amie, grasping a fleeting presence, reminded me that I can't ever seem to be sure whether I'm coming or going. The quintessentially Philadelphia summer weather -- oppressive humidity, followed by a raging thunderstorm -- was sublime for once, because it felt like home is supposed to feel. But do I have a home? I have a Home, but for right now, I feel like a displaced person.

The problem is that nothing is real anymore. I live in a perpetual waking dream, so surrounded by constant changes that there is nothing to rest on, nothing tangible to abide in. It's not that I'm a creature of routine, craving some sort of predictability to create stability, rather it's just that constant overstimulation and scenery changes cause a sense of helplessness, resignation, and fatalism. I'm not in control of anything. This is ultimately for the best (the situation that is, not my current attitude towards it), but for a person who is overly concerned with memory and the passing of time, it is disconcerting to feel like I am always being rushed on by tides in which I have no say.

I am, however, miraculously provided for. In the state of pure dependence and loss of control, there is something beautiful and sweet in receiving from the hand of God. I was sitting in a coffee shop in Portland Maine last week, just so I could get on the Internet (too poor to afford food or drink), and a waitress came over to me with a plate of pita bread and garlic hummus and said, "This is courtesy of Katie Smith [Armine's girlfriend]." Kate, who we had stayed with the preceding night, had called her friend who worked there and told her to "find the kid with glasses and a ponytail and feed him." In that moment I became conscious of a more-than-passing similiarity to the Israelites, hungry and wandering in the desert, fed with manna from heaven.


Psalm 18 / Be Little With Me / redeeming the basement couch / gifts / Micah 6:8 / the ocean / holy rain / daily bread / presence / tactility / tangled bodies / tears