Adventure #29: Pittsburgh (December 2010 Tour)
I woke up later than planned, frantically finished packing, and headed down to my car, where the bastards who own the trucking company that moved my car and left it in the middle of the road a few weeks ago was in the process of doing the same thing to someone else. Jeff's Express: your days are numbered. I took lots of pictures. With faces. Jerks. I finally got on the road with just enough time to make it to Pittsburgh. It should also be noted at this point, that when you misspell December, spell check suggests “dismember.” Which is just awesome. This is Pen Pen kissing his love goodbye before heading off on the road.
The drive across Pennsylvania was long and dull. I'm still captivated by corn fields and train yards, but highways through mountains just don't do it for me anymore. I've moved on to stronger stuff. I pulled in to Pittsburgh with half an hour before the show was supposed to start and walked into the empty coffee shop. I was a little concerned, but Nathan and Ben who ran the place assured me that there were people coming and it would be a fun night. Also they spelled my name wrong on the placard outside. So I had a fresh zucchini panini (which is fun to say) and chatted with them for a bit before getting set up. This is Pen Pen in front of the side of the placard where they spelled my name right because I promised I wouldn't post pictures of the other side.
The show was actually a lot of fun. People started filtering in during the first few songs and pretty soon the place was pretty well packed. Everyone there was super supportive and friendly. Previously, I had assumed this was some mid-western virtue. But increasingly I'm thinking it may not be that people outside of New York and Boston are particularly nice; it's just that we're all jerks. We all hung out for a while after I played. A few people missed the point of a mailing list and put their actual mailing addresses down. These people will be getting postcards. This is Pen Pen performing Ben Folds Five's entire discography in under 2 minutes.
After the show, I headed back to Eliza's place and set up her air mattress in the living room. It self inflates and sounds like a house collapsing. Truly, this is the future. We made pasta and stayed up for a while chatting about religion and science and Costco. I curled up on the surprisingly comfortable air mattress of the future with a cat at my side. Day one of the tour: total success. This is Pen Pen in the future.
This is a song I wrote this one time. You should download it and share it with your friends.
