Adventure #60: Summer Tour 2012 Dallas, Texas

We left Amarillo sad to leave our friends behind, but in good spirits. Then we hit Clarendon, Texas. Friends, I want to tell you about the town of Clarendon, Texas where this happened there. They got three stop signs, two police officers, and one police car. And that police car will not hesitate to pull you over if you fail to notice where the highway goes from 70 to 55 to 35 before immediately shooting back up to 55 then 70 again in the span of half a mile. So I slowed down to 50 but never saw the sign for when it goes down to 35. So $215 later and my unsuccessful pleading turned into a whole lot of unfavorable comparisons to farm animals. Well, one farm animal really. This is Pen Pen getting a great idea for a Sammy Hagar / NWA mash-up.

A cloud of dispirited silence hung over the rest of the drive to Dallas. The silence occasionally punctuated by sentences that start with “and another thing about cops...” But we got to the venue and there was a pretty decent crowd there. Opening Bell Coffee does a songwriter night on Mondays, and the host's daughter was playing a set and had brought a lot of her friends out. She opened and had a killer voice. She told me she was applying to schools in New York for musical theatre with an embarrassed chuckle. “Funny,” I said, “I write musicals in real life.” We got along great after that. Joshua, Holly, me, Pen Pen, Joshua's friend Shannon and Holly's friends Tara and Patty headed to In-N-Out Burger for veggie burgers after the show because Opening Bell is the only coffee shop venue in America that doesn't comp performers food and screw that. My moral compass makes less sense the harder you think about it, so it's best not to think about the fact that I took a stand against pay-to-play at an otherwise nice locally owned business by eating GMO at a chain fast food place... This is Pen Pen feeling slightly less bad when he discovered that In-N-Out employees get a living wage and benefits.

This is a song I wrote one time. You should download it and share with your friends.

Adventure #59: Summer Tour 2012 Amarillo, Texas

I woke up on Saturday in a pile or clothes and boxes in a basement in Albuquerque, after having spent the past day off recording with my friend Tap in his studio. This is the glamorous life. My morning ritual on tour is to double check all the details on that day's show. Mostly this is to figure out what time we need to be there / leave wherever we are. So looking through my e-mails with The 806 in Amarillo I kept noticing a curious thing: the date said September 9th. That's not possible. We're playing in Austin on the 9th. Amarillo is on the 8th. And oh crap. This is Pen Pen wishing we'd slept in a little less and maybe been high on slightly less morphine while booking this tour.

So I did what I do best in times like this: I panicked. Once I'd done that for a little while, I did what I do second best in times like this: I internetted. I started cold calling places in Amarillo that had music and didn't look like they had anything on the schedule. Amarillo's got a pretty big music scene, so thankfully there were a lot of places to play. Steve from Moe Dogs said they didn't have anyone and if we showed up with a PA we could play and they'd give us some free food. This is why I bring a PA on the road. It was about 10 minutes after I hung up the phone, relieved that I realized this was a hot dog joint on Route 66 and odds are good there would be no food I could eat there, and more importantly that they'd not really be that into an effeminate Jewish animal rights activist vegetarian with a bright pink mohawk and his nails painted blue. This is Pen Pen realizing we might be walking off a cliff.

But oh Amarillo, way to prove us wrong about basically everything. Texas has a lot of stereotypes. Most of these are reinforced by former presidents, recent primary presidential candidates and King of the Hill. Amarillo doesn't conform to any of them. My friends Dave and Molly who put us up are really rad bohemians, and even the bikers at Moe Dogs dug our stuff. Sure one of them made a crack about my fingernails, and when one of them asked for an 80's cover I asked if he liked Prince, because I'm really good at reading people. But whatever. We had a pretty great night, and decided we'd rather stay in town and keep our obligation to The 806. This is Pen Pen both being and visiting a Route 66 roadside attraction.

It was strange having a whole day without having to drive anywhere. We've only done that twice on this whole tour. We drove up and down Route 66 looking at some of the roadside attractions and exploring Amarillo. Then got back to Dave and Molly's with some time to actually hang out and spend time with my friends before the show. How novel! The show itself was fun, but small. Sundays. Whatareyougonnado? We made a few new friends and mostly just heckled each other and used it as an opportunity to play songs we haven't really been doing on this tour. It was funtimes. Add Amarillo to my list of places that are always rad. This is Pen Pen and a giant red hot.

This is a song I wrote one time. You should download and share it with your friends.

Adventure #57 and 58: Summer Tour 2012 Mesa and Flagstaff Arizona

This is the week of shows booked while still effectively bed-ridden from surgery. And very very high on morphine. So it hasn't really been surprising that each of them has an asterisk, or a crucial detail I missed, or just sort of sucked. Mesa was weird. Really weird. It turns into a ghost town after 5. Our show was at 7. There were a ton of bronze statues all over the place of people just hanging out and sitting on benches which combined with the marked lack of people on the street gave the whole town the impression that it had been struck by some sort of bronze Vesuvius right before we got there. This was one of those (disconcertingly large number on this tour) where the show fell through then un-fell through at the last minute. Sam, the guy who runs the place, is a really rad guy though and did everything to make it not bad. So it was just weird. This is Pen Pen and a boy who was tragically turned to bronze while doing his homework.

Sam's venue is part of this complex with two other stages. What we didn't know was that The Ataris were playing their first show in a long time in one of those other stages. So in the most technical possible sense, we opened for the Ataris in Mesa. Which also meant that basically anyone who would be interested in punk influenced folk music was watching that other stage. But a few folks came in, and they made up for it. First this girl walks in wearing a Bomb The Music Industry shirt. “Oh cool,” Joshua said mid-set. “Do you like Bomb the Music Industry?” “Sort of. I used to be in Bomb The Music Industry, so I guess. Yeah.” Later while I was playing, some random guy walks in and talks to Sam for a little bit. Sam keeps trying to get my attention, but I'm not really that good at paying attention to things. It turns out it was Kris Roe from the Ataris. He stuck around for a song or two before heading off to do something. Probably involving playing to thousands of people 30 feet away from me. Whatever. No big deal. This is Pen Pen and a cloud that looks like my dad's mustache.

The next day we had to drive up to Flagstaff, which really isn't that far from the Grand Canyon and none of us had ever been. So that's what we did. We were slightly taken aback at the $25 entrance fee (what no broke touring musician discount? How rude.) but whatever. It's the Grand Frickin Canyon. What else were we going to do? The Canyon is very much Grand. I went off hiking trying to find a path that wasn't paved and covered in tourists. I finally got to the end of the paved path by the time it was time to turn around, which means I'll just have to come back next time. This is Pen Pen contemplating his own insignificance in the face of millions of years of geology.

We played at a place called the Green Room, and it was cool for no reason other than because GZA had played there earlier. Also they had an apartment above the bar. I think if every venue had an apartment above for bands touring would go from being a surreal occasionally wonderful and often stressful adventure in vagrancy to the glamorous funtimes people seem to think it is. But it's still better than being covered in tarantulas. This is Pen Pen staring down a tarantula.

This is a song I wrote one time. You should download it and share with your friends.

Adventure #55 and 56: Summer Tour 2012: Los Angeles and San Diego, California

There are some shows you play for money. There are shows you play for exposure. There are shows you play because artistically you think they'll be good. There are shows you play as a flimsy pretext to see old friends. And there are shows you play for their proximity to the beach. The show in LA was the latter. I was under no impression that a show on Labor Day Monday would be anything special, but the venue seemed really cool, and what else were we going to do? So the show was OK. Enough people to make it worthwhile but not so many that we were in danger of being mobbed by adoring fans and trampled to death by the sheer force of their adoration. But you know what was better than just OK? The beach. This is Pen Pen living beside the ocean, leaving the world behind, swimming out past the breakers, and watching the world die.

We spent the next day on the beach in Santa Monica. Then drove to San Diego and promptly spent the rest of the day on the beach. Because we've been in the mountains for weeks and I never got to the beach when I was with my family on the Cape. Priorities. Besides, the show had fallen through and then been resurrected at the last second, so my expectations were pretty low. This is Pen Pen trying to convince a flock of seagulls to come to the show.

Dan, the guy who put it together, is a super rad dude. And against all odds it ended up being one of the most fun shows of the tour. Joshua and I decided both to screw the PA and play totally unplugged in the bar area. The crowd seemed to be into it and participating in all the right bits. Also I'd never played on a bar before, so that was fun. Afterwards we crashed out at this girl Morgan's house who works at the zoo(!!) and said she could get us in for free next time we come through. Also she had chickens and could hypnotize them probably for the same reason that I can sing “Row Row Your Boat” backwards. This is Pen Pen winning at cock fighting through the power of hypnosis.

This is a song I wrote one time. You should download and share it with your friends.

Adventure #53 and #54: Summer Tour 2012, Sacramento and San Francisco, California

Touring can be so bipolar sometimes. You're playing and you're getting a good response and you're just on top of the world. Even if there's only 30 people, you're really connecting to those 30 people. And then a guy walks by in a wife-beater that proudly shows off the giant swastika tattoo across his chest and the day is just ruined forever. So that was Sacramento.

We were doing 2 shows. The first on a stage at a mall because I don't know if you know this about me, but I'm really into corporations. I mean, some of my best friends are corporations. And then a second show at a fancy bar downtown. The Nazi was in the mall. Mall Nazis are like Mall Goths, except, you know, they want to exterminate me and my family. Whereas Mall Goths just want to write poetry about their feelings. It's a subtle, but important difference. This is Pen Pen looking for Electric Tree Nazis, but only finding artichokes, which are roughly three times smarter.

The show at the fancy bar was better, if only for its pronounced lack of Nazis. Joshua's brother (not a Nazi) met up with us and was a lot of fun to hang out with. But I decided the most responsible thing to do was to do my nails and get very very drunk to try and forget about the Nazi and have a good time (didn't work...) so the rest of the evening is a little blurry. I probably sang a few songs. Odds are good “Family of Ghosts” was one of them. This is Pen Pen having stolen an artichoke from a tree on the capital mall to throw at Nazis because no matter how many times he types IDKFA, nothing happens.

It was as the show was wrapping up that our place to stay fell through. Being clear headed and sober, I did what any responsible mature adult would do and started to panic. We decided we had 3 options. Drive an hour and a half inn the wrong direction to stay at Jesse (Joshua's non-Nazi brother)'s place, spend all our food money on a hotel room in Sacramento, or see if anyone in San Francisco could house us. I figured it couldn't hurt to send out a tweet to some of my Occupy Oakland friends that I'd been planning on meeting up with to see if anyone had a place we could crash. Amazingly, a guy named Bob who I'd never spoken to before got back to me and said we could stay at his place. I know there are people who have their beef with Occupy, and there are as many fair criticisms as there are unfounded ones. But one thing you can never say is that Occupiers don't take the principal of solidarity very seriously. I make a lot of stupid jokes in my blog, but I remain honestly and sincerely speechless with gratitude. This is Pen Pen bored already of Nazis.

We got to Bob's place, who turns out to be one of the kindest and most generous humans alive. He and I stayed up talking till 5 or so. The next day I decided to head to the Occupy Oakland General Assembly to see if I could connect with any of their puppeteers. None of them were at the Assembly, but someone gave me the phone number of a guy. After, I headed back to Bob's and Holly trimmed my mohawk. For the first time in 3 months, I felt like myself again. Barely 24 hours from being sent into existential shock at the sight of a Nazi in Sacramento during my show and my faith in humanity was mostly restored. This is Pen Pen making a wig because maybe skinheads are just angry that they're going bald and can't grow a luscious Jewfro like me.

The show in San Francisco was fun, though the guys at the venue clearly couldn't care less about it. But a few #OO friends showed up and there was a decent built in crowd. Punkboy livestreamed it and I got some really nice comments from a bunch of folks who watched it online. Talking to Julie Meyers, who was playing after me, I realized there's a decent chance we're remotely related through our Ukraine Jew families. So that was awesome. After the show, we headed off to Punkboy's husband's birthday party and I finally got to meet a bunch of people I've only known through twitter in real life. An essentially perfect day ended back at Bob's place. I can't say enough about the spirit of generosity and support of the Occupy Oakland community (even EastBayRadical...). So touring is pretty bipolar. There aren't a lot of just OK days on the road. But sometimes a really upsetting day can turn into one of the best days I've ever had on tour. This is Pen Pen looking out over at Oakland and wondering if it wouldn't make more sense to cancel the rest of the tour and just not leave ever.

This is a song I wrote one time. You should download it and share with your friends.

Adventures #51 and #52: Summer Tour 2012 Bend, Oregon and Eureka, California

The road to Bend is paved with good intentions. We'll leave it at that. The show didn't happen, but the venue owner was super apologetic and made it really hard to be angry. So we decided to make the best out of a crappy situation and record an EP with their gear. Joshua and I each did 3 songs, and hopefully a few of them will come out all right. This is Pen Pen masking his disappointment through the magic of song!

So we got up in the morning with a long drive ahead of us which would have been much shorter had we not driven out to Bend for no reason. (See? I'm totally not bitter. I'm very professional.) Holly spent the whole drive trying to see a bear from the road, and I've decided to embark on a psychological experiment where I remind her every day about how we saw a baby bear through the trees about 100 feet out from the road. It was about 2 or 3 feet tall, and wasn't doing much, but it was still pretty cool to see a bear in the wild. See? It's like Inception. This is Pen Pen with a baby black bear in the distance, but it's sort of hard to see the bear.

While Holly was trying (and succeeding!) to see a bear (it was in the distance, about 100 feet from the road. Like 2 or 3 feet tall. It wasn't really doing much, but still, we totally saw a bear from the side of the road! How cool is that?) I was trying to see some big-ass trees. We were about an hour north of Eureka when BAM! Big Ass Trees. Everywhere. I got out of the car and literally started skipping aimlessly into the woods. That happened for about 20 minutes when I remembered that my friends were somewhere behind me and I hadn't been following a trail, and I didn't particularly need to see two bears in one day, especially not one closer than about 100 feet away. Luckily there was a Big Ass Tree that made it pretty easy to spot the entrance to the grove so I wasn't abandoned to the plentiful bears of the Crescent City, California region. This is Pen Pen with a Big Ass Tree.

The show itself was fun, though nothing epic. A half full bar. Some random patrons and a bunch of Jarrod West's friends. Following the great West Coast tradition, we were pretty sure the headlining band wasn't ever going to show up. But they did and closed out the night loudly. It was good times. This is Pen Pen finally seeing the actual real Pacific Ocean.

This is a song I wrote one time. You should download it and share with your friends.

Adventure #50: Summer Tour 2012 Portland, Oregon

There are places that have stereotypes about them that are totally unfair. For example: the South has tons of well-spoken intelligent people, most of the people I've met in France smell lovely, and I once met a Canadian who was kind of a jerk. (His name is Sol. He plays drums on my record.) But Portland is a very special place. It's maybe the only place in the world where the stereotypes might actually be underselling the reality.

The bar we were playing is a Doctor Who bar. (Yes! Go Portland!) The bill had four acts on it, the headliner, Celia Grace, has a pretty big draw in town. And two of my favorite people in the world Jesse and Lexi live in Portland now and I don't get to see them that often. So we were all pretty excited. This is Pen Pen stepping out of a TARDIS and into the dream of the 90s (which is alive in Portland...).

The show was supposed to start at 9. We got there at 8, cause, you know, we may be total jackasses but we at least try to keep up the appearance of professionalism. Jim Strange, the local opener, and Celia Grace were nowhere to be found. The place was dead but the waitress (who totally looked like Amelia Pond, though I'm actually not certain she knew who that was and may have been more than a little annoyed at my insistence that she totally looks like her and we're best friends now forever) assured us that things pick up later in the evening. OK. Great! So a gaggle of drunk guys stumble in and proceed to paw at the sound system trying to figure out how to make it work. These are those instances when I debate whether I should mention that I went to college for theatre sound and could totally make it work and then EQ the crap out of it if they want. Usually I decide to stare blankly and say something to the effect of “Oh, I don't know. I'm just a guitarist. I don't understand what the colored knobby things do. Is that how you turn on the lights?” This is Pen Pen vs. the plush Dalek of Drunk Jackasses (it's an obscure 7th Doctor serial. You've probably never heard of it...).

It turns out they wanted to do a comedy routine before the show started. OK. Sure. Why not? Jim wasn't here yet, and personally I had begun to doubt the existence of Celia Grace. Like what if she's more of a state of mind, than a singer-songwriter? Jim finally showed up and we got the show started. No-one (except Jesse and Lexi) continued to be in the bar, the drunk guys having retired to the pool table in the back. Celia also continued to not show up. Slowly the realization creeped over us that we weren't going to have an audience (other than Jesse and Lexi) and that maybe we were all Celia Grace. The clues are in the anagrams for her name: A Circle Age, Glacier Ace, and Eclair Cage. This is Pen Pen having battled his way out of the Eclair Cage only to fight the Doughnut of Destiny.

We headed downtown after the show. (if a band plays in a TARDIS and no-one's around to hear it, other than Jesse and Lexi, does it count as a show? (The expression sounds less clunky in the original Cantonese.)) We got doughnuts. There were many hipsters. But also an anarcho-punk. He and I made jokes about hardcore kids and ska kids because it's a reflex that fans of the band Crass have when we meet each other. Then this happened:

Random Girl With Awesome Hair: (enters stage left stumbling around like she's looking for something, but doesn't want it to know she's looking for it. Except she's drunk so she's doing it as loudly and obviously as possible.) So. I know this is strange. But have any of you guys seen a clown around here?

Blank Stares

Random Girl With Awesome Hair: Like with a red nose?

Blank Stares

Random Girl With Awesome Hair: Oh. Uh. OK. Thanks anyway.

Was she Celia Grace? Was Celia Grace the clown? What could it all mean? This is Pen Pen with Jim Strange, himself a manifestation of the 4^th type of Celia Grace as foretold in the ancient prophecy.

Driving back to the (totally not a) hippie commune where Jesse and Lexi live, Joshua and Holly suddenly got very excited about the Church of Elvis. “What? You've never seen the Church of Elvis? How is that possible?” So we turned around driving past herds of free range hipsters and found this coin operated display on the side of a wall. It's supposed to be some art installation that you put a coin in and it tells you your fortune. All right. Cool. I walked over and put a quarter in and pushed a button. Nothing happened. Maybe this is Celia Grace. Or maybe it's Celia Grace testing my worthiness? I put another quarter in and pushed all the buttons. Still nothing. Then a guy (with awesome hair) walked by me (Celia?) and shouted with the fervor of a thousand 911 Truthers “Hey man, that thing is a scam. It ain't real. It's just some bullshit collection for the Church. Don't even bother. It's not real. That wont tell you nothing about Portland!” This is Pen Pen, keeping Portland weird, because it really really really needs the help.

This is a song I wrote one time. You should download it and share with your friends.

Adventure #49: Summer Tour 2012 Seattle, Washington

After 2 weeks on the road we finally hit the west coast! It's been weeks since I've seen a single person that I'd ever met before who wasn't Joshua, Holly, or a drunken lecherous stuffed penguin. First order of business: find water. Mountains are great and all, but they don't have octopi. Unless they do, in which case: Crypto Mountain Octopi! (new band name?) After much discussion about whether the Puget Sound counts as the Pacific Ocean (it doesn't damnit!), we ended up at Golden Gardens and wandered around for a bit. The warm sand felt like heaven beneath my feet. So what if the water's on the wrong side? It was slightly too cold to actually go in, though that didn't stop me from trying. This is Pen Pen trying to fit in with all the grunge seagulls (which is my other new band name).

I met up with my cousins for dinner at a place called the Golden Beetle. Extracting from a sample size of two, I'm assuming that everything in Seattle is named “Golden Something...” The first few weeks were road food and processed crap. Eating real organic food for the last few days is a luxury I'm not used to on tour. We got to the venue and met up with Eric and Elizabeth from DVDOD and Safeword Sasquatch, who I played with last year. Seattle is a homecoming show for Joshua and Holly, so between their friends and my family there was a decent crowd for a Tuesday. The show was a lot of fun, and it was great seeing Joshua play to a hometown crowd who knew all his songs and sang along. Well, we made it to the coast. Now time to drive south for a week! This is Pen Pen with conclusive evidence of the existence of aliens.

This is a song I wrote one time. You should download it and share with your friends.

Adventure #46 - 48: Summer Tour 2012 Salt Lake City, Boise, and Richland

After a few days of (not always positive) excitement, it was kind of nice to have a string of unspectacular but certainly good shows. We left Rock Springs, Wyoming with a layover at the Community College which is interspersed with a dinosaur museum. How could you get any work done in school when there's always a T-Rex like 10 feet away? It just seems irresponsible. Dinosaurs are too awesome to just be hanging around. If going to the Natural History Museum didn't involve putting on pants and going outside and then paying for it wouldn't we all just be there all the time? Or is that just me? Nerd nerd nerd nerd nerd. This the most dangerous flightless bird in history, and a T-Rex.

Our show in Salt Lake City was small, but fun. I played Tin Angel last year and had a great time, so it seemed like a good idea to hit it up again. It was big gear shift from previous shows, going from being the raucous center of attention at punk houses to being pleasant background music while rich people eat expensive (and delicious) food. But everyone was super nice, especially Laura the manager (who is a fantastic jewelry artist), and I finally got a chance to see the Great Salt Lake. Which was, you know, big and salty. This is Pen Pen pretty annoyed that Brigham Young brought him all the way out here and the water's not even drinkable.

Boise (Caldwell, technically) was a house show, and one of the bigger bands in the area (my new nemesis Tartufi) was doing a last minute show and basically sapped the audience. So we played to 6 people, but at least they were 6 people who sang along and heckled in all the right ways. The people who live there are in the first year of growing an organic garden, and most of the food they had was homegrown. So the show may not have been all that but the food definitely was. This is Pen Pen and what I can only assume are watermelons.

We hit the road and headed up to the appropriately named Richland, Washington to play a vineyard. Monday shows are pretty universally terrible wherever you play them. A Monday at a good venue is pretty much a waste of an evening, unless it's a place where you already have a big audience. So I took a cue from a friend and decided to try booking a vineyard show. Because if you're going to play to no-one, you might as well get well paid, well fed, and well boozed. And we did. So what if basically the only people who watched was a waitress and her parents? Though there was an epic moment when two 8 year old boys got up to dance around while I played “Oh! What a Captain of Industry” that made the whole thing worth it. Actually, just the food made the whole thing worth it. So the past 3 days have been filled with unspectacular shows, but pretty damn spectacular (and all organic!) food. And after 2 weeks of eating Subway and gas station egg salad sandwiches (no word yet on whether I've been infested with brain-enhancing parasites. But I wont know for sure until I can get a holophoner.) that was a trade off I could live with. This is Pen Pen totally selling out.

This is a song I wrote one time. You should download it and share with your friends.

Adventure #45: Summer Tour 2012: Rock Springs, Wyoming

Having successfully failed to find anywhere to crash in Casper, Wyoming, we decided to drive through the night to Rock Springs and get a hotel room there. And by “we,” of course, I mean Joshua. Because I was asleep in the back seat like the fragile flower I am.

We got to Rock Springs, Wyoming at the break of dawn with still a few hours before any hotel would let us check in to sleep the day off. And by “us” here I mean Joshua and Holly, because I had gotten my beauty sleep in the car and was ready for awesomeness. We wandered downtown for a bit and ended up killing time at this little local diner called Grubs, because just calling the place “Food” would have been pretentious. This is Pen Pen being welcomed to Rock Springs.

The Rocky Mountains stood over the town taunting me with their existence. Sure, I had part of my right lung removed only 8 weeks ago, but these mountains were just so there. I couldn't let them be there without hiking them. That would be un-American, or something. So while Joshua and Holly napped, I took the Rusty Shackleford and drove toward the mountains. I got to where the pavement ended, parked the car, and started walking. Now keep in mind that 7 weeks ago I still needed help to walk any more than a few feet. And it was only about 3 weeks ago that I stopped requiring high dosages of pain medication to do anything more complicated than play Minecraft. So sure, these aren't the tallest, most difficult peaks in the Rockies, but as far as I was concerned they were the damn Himalayas. This is Pen Pen staring up at the mountain concluding that this wasn't the dumbest possible thing I could do.

It wasn't until I hit the rock scramble about 2/3rds up that how massively suicidal this was really registered with me. But at that point it had become a matter of pride. I was going to scale this comparatively easy mountain whether it wanted me to or not. My heart pounding through my chest, I crested the mountain and looked around. It opened up on a massive plateau, a sun bleached rib cage rising up from the dust 20 feet away. I sat down on a rock for a little while to catch my breath, eat cashews, and read some Asimov. I crashed out at the hotel for the rest of the afternoon. My adrenaline still pumping, keeping my body from knowing just how pissed at me my lungs really were. This is Pen Pen, King of the Rockies.

We headed off to the venue, not really sure what to expect. I play places like Porky's on tour a lot, and it's usually a good time. But it's the sort of place where they'll either love us or hate us. And unfortunately by the time you figure out which one it's going to be it's too late to do anything about it. So you just sit there singing your stupid songs absorbing rays of hate from the crowd. We walked in, nervously looking around. It wasn't packed, but there were enough folks there for a decent show. But I guess they were the right folks. It ended up being a pretty awesome night. Definitely the best of the tour so far. Everyone was really fun and we kept playing until 1 or so juggling between covers and originals. So way to be rad Rock Springs, Wyoming. This is Pen Pen riding Porky's pig.

This is a song I wrote one time. You should download it and share with your friends.

Adventure #44: Summer Tour 2012: Casper, Wyoming

The drive across Nebraska is really nice if you're not the sort of person for whom the sight of acres upon acres of dead corn fields dried up from drought causes existential crises about the unsustainability of American agriculture. Otherwise, it's great. It's also a great drive if you're in the sort of car where the gas gauge has any bearing on reality.

So we're in a 1995 Ford Aerostar that gets roughly 21 miles per gallon. It has an 18 gallon tank. So when it hits an 1/8 of a tank, that should mean “start looking for a gas station, but you'll be fine as long as you find one within 47.25 miles.” Not so for the Rusty Shackleford. We made it about 7 miles before it sputtered off to the side of the road. OK fine. Joshua and I both have AAA and we still had an hour of flex time before we needed to be in Casper, Wyoming. We learned the hard way that the gas gauge on the car is sort of arbitrary and that 1/8 of a tank = empty. But otherwise, we'd be fine. This is Pen Pen waiting patiently for roadside assistance.

So Joshua calls AAA and informs them we're at mile marker 2, right before the turn-off for exit 1 on I-80 on the Nebraska side of the Nebraska-Wyoming border. Jennifer the not terribly competent AAA employee proceeds to put him on hold for 20 minutes, then comes back to inform him that it's impossible, and that where we were simply didn't exist. Also insinuating in no uncertain terms that Joshua might be lying for some nefarious purpose. Some sort of Joker-Batman conundrum? The world will never know. This was news to us, but we had spent a good chunk of the drive discussing time travel paradoxes, so we were totally in the right frame of mind to be told that where we were didn't really exist. This is Pen Pen in a time travel paradox, somehow existing both now and a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

Oh wait, did I say we were in the right frame of mind? Because no we definitely weren't. We were now almost certainly going to be late for the show and stranded in the hot Nebraska sun 3 tantalizing miles from the nearest gas station. Just close enough to be walkable, but far enough that if we attempted it we'd never make it anywhere even close to on time. 2 mind-bogglingly frustrating calls to AAA and about 45 Tom-Petty-on the-ukelele-filled minutes later (during which not a single person stopped to ask if we were OK...so much for midwestern hospitality...) a guy from AAA shows up. Re-fueled, we set off back on the road, slightly embarrassed for having run out of gas 3 miles from a gas station, but mostly late. We finally got to the venue only 30 minutes late and set about playing some folk songs for the surprisingly awesome patrons of Casper, Wyoming. This is Pen Pen strutting in to the venue 30 minutes late like the rock star he is.

This is a song I wrote one time. You should download it and share it with your friends.

Adventure #43: Summer Tour 2012 Lincoln, Nebraska

Joe, the guy who booked our show in Lincoln, Nebraska, had been unceremoniously fired from booking at Cultiva about a week ago. He let us know the show was still on, and we could still stay with him, but he wasn't welcome on the premises. So off to a good start. The show was sparsely attended, to say the least. But we made the most of it. There were a handful of people who were there and into it. And anyway, we kind of knew that was going to be the score going into it.

We headed back to Joe's to hang out, have some down time, and most importantly watch Zoolander. Joe brought us out to a house warming party for a friend of his, where the common refrain was “oh, I wish I'd known there was a show at Cultiva. I would have gone!” So it goes. This is Pen Pen admiring Joe's impressive VHS collection.

We decided the next day to stick around Lincoln for another day instead of driving halfway to Wyoming and taking a day off there. Lincoln's actually a pretty rad town. We had lunch at this bookstore and got into a heated political discussion with a guy who kept informing us he was “apolitical.” I'm actually still not totally clear on what we were disagreeing about. After lunch, everyone told us we should hit up the Nebraska History Museum downtown. So we did that for a bit, then headed back to Joe's. Had another Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat and didn't get up until the next morning when we all had to go to Wyoming. This is Pen Pen making an old-timey phone call to Rosy.

This is a song I wrote one time. You should download it and share it with your friends.

Adventure #42: Summer Tour 2012 Omaha, Nebraska

The brake line went from “huh, it probably shouldn't be using so much brake fluid” to “oh crap we're all gonna die!” on the doom-o-meter en route to Omaha. By the time we pulled into the venue the brake line was completely depressurized. Joshua found a shop that could take a look at it in the morning, so we promptly set about the business of rocking. There was one other act for the night; a husband and wife folk duo from Nashville called You Knew Me When. Which was good because it was a Monday night in a dive bar in Omaha, and it became apparent pretty quickly that we'd be each other's audiences. So we tried out new material on each other and were generally self-depreciating jackasses. It was kinda fun.

Joshua's friend Becky (who I'm pretty sure hates me for no discernible reason) suggested we hit up an open mic after the show. The audience was infinitely larger if only because 8 doesn't divide by 0. We found out later that both Andrew Bird and Mumford and Sons were in town, so pretty much any audience for vaguelly folkish alternarock in Omaha was otherwise preoccupied. We headed back to Becky's place, where she continued to hate me for no reason. But hey, her roomate had a cool oldschool VW bug. So, you know... Omaha! Jazz hands. This is Pen Pen, punch buggy gray.

This is a song I wrote one time. You should download it and share with your friends.

Adventure #41: Summer Tour 2012 Ames, Iowa

Joshua got an e-mail from the venue we were supposed to play at 3 in the morning saying the show was off. So we were pretty psyched about that. Nate Allen suggested we try this open mic in Ames, Iowa and get featured slots there since we were on tour. So we hit the road and made it to the venue just in time. The guy who ran it was super cool and let us each do longish sets. So it was all OK.

Alma from the Puppetry Guild was in town selling posters to college students (yay capitalism!) so that was legitimately awesome. One of the guys at the open mic actually played a song about Occupy and Alma and I couldn't stop giggling. I think he thought we were heckling him. It's just weird when someone sings a song about all your friends. But kind of awesome. This rad couple, JD and Markie let us crash on their floor afterward. I had pretty low expectations about the whole night, but honestly it ended up being a really fun night. Maybe slightly more stressful than I really wanted, but certainly better than it could have been. This is Pen Pen trying to find the leak in the brake lane because it's been that sort of day.

This is a song I wrote one time. You should download it and share with your friends.

Adventure #40: Summer Tour 2012 Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Well I finally found my limit. I spent the whole day after the Chicago show feeling totally drained. Thankfully Milwaukee is only a short drive from Chicago so I was able to lay low for a bit. The Milwaukee show at the Art Bar was plagued by problems from the start. There were some massively confusing miscommunications that basically resulted in the local headliner not knowing they were supposed to headline and me having to scramble to find a local with 48 hours notice. Because letting this stuff fall to the touring artist is the best way to make sure it gets solved. But the venue was really cool about the whole thing, and actually quite accommodating. This is my lung being too tired to deal with this crap.

Despite everything, the show ended up being actually kind of fun. The audience participated during all the audience participation parts and there was some really rad back and forth about Scott Walker when I played “Thank You America.” One audience member reminded me (while I was trying to explain exactly that) that Wisconsin pretty much invented Occupy. (George Soros, Obama, the CIA, The Loch Ness Monster, and Ben, but not Jerry, didn't get involved until after the Madison protests last year, as we all know.)

So not the worst show I'd ever played. Far from the best, but you know, a show will have to really work at it to be worse than the time I got a knife pulled on me in New Jersey in the middle of a song when I was 19. Life lesson: when the metalheads at the dive bar heckle you for playing a sad girl song don't heckle back. No good can come of it. So, thankfully unstabbed, we finished the unremarkable show and drove to Madison to stay with an old friend of Joshua's. It looks like the similarly unnecessarily dramatic show in Des Moines is falling apart, so we're now deciding over a feast of pancakes and mimosas whether to take a day off or not. This is Pen Pen being all classy and junk.

This is a song I wrote one time. You should download it and share it with your friends.

Adventure #39: Summer Tour 2012 Chicago, Illinois

I keep wanting to call Sid and Helen Sid and Nancy but I wont do that. We showed up at Sid and Nancy's, a little house in the suburbs of Chicago. Mayberry they call it. Nate and Tessa from Destroy Nate Allen got in shortly after and we promptly set about rocking. It's weird. This is only my second time playing with Destroy Nate Allen, but it feels like we've done a lot more. I guess they just make a big impression.

The show was awesome. Definitely the best of the tour so far. There was a pretty solid crowd there. A bunch of Joshua's friends drove up from Cleveland to see Nate. I finally got people singing along with “Oh! What A Captain of Industry,” and Joshua joined me on guitar for “Family of Ghosts.” I played accordion because I had figured out how to play the banjo lick on the accordion earlier that day, and that seemed like a good idea. Mostly it was. Nate and Tessa rocked the house the way they do. I got out of breath just watching them. This is Pen Pen destroying Nate Allen.

Sid and Helen's seems like kind of a community hub. A regular hang out spot for a lot of folks. The guys from Flat Foot 56, who we'll be playing with on the way back in September were there. So that was cool. And Sid and Helen's kids were sort of hilarious. Their youngest daughter couldn't decide if she wanted to be a crust punk or a doctor when she grew up. Their infant son wandered around with a Run DMC onesie. Then Joshua and I spent time berating their teenage daughter for not knowing who Patty Smith or Pavement were. We're those people. Picking on teenage girls for the win! On the way out, Joshua demanded that we stop and get some Chicago deep dish pizza before we headed up to Milwaukee. This is Pen Pen enjoying some real Chicago deep dish in real Chicago.

This is a song I wrote one time You should download it and share it with your friends.

Adventure #38: Summer Tour 2012 Fort Wayne, Indiana

We pulled up to a nondescript painted brick building in the USS Rusty Shackleford each asking “is this the place? I think this is the place. It must be the place.” There was only the slightest indication that this was or had ever been a bar. So we walked in fully expecting the diviest of dive bars. We were not disappointed. That's not to talk down about the venue or the show. It was a lot of fun, and the folks there were kind of awesome. How can you not love a place where a former pro wrestler (aptly) critiques Mos Def's latter material?

They maybe didn't take the smoking ban super seriously, so I was worried that Chester the crankylung would have some issues. But Chester was OK. It didn't hurt that the Miller High Life flowed like, well...Miller High Life. Needless to say things got a little fuzzy after Joshua's set. We went and crashed at this guy Mason's house who it turns out was in a play with my friend Eric. Way to go Fort Wayne. This is Pen Pen trying to figure out if it's a venue or not. (Spoiler alert: it's a venue.)

This is a song I wrote one time. You should download it and share it with your friends.

Adventure #37: Summer Tour 2012 Detroit, Michigan

Every single punk in the history of ever has said the following “yeah man, we're gonna get our own house, and we'll throw shows and have a garden in the back and be totally self-sufficient and it'll all be co-operatively owned.” I've said it. You've said it. Some of us have even done it for a little while until one of the house members gets all weird, or starts doing heroin, or has kids, or the house burns down. Most of the best ones tend to run for about a year before splitting up. Against all odds, the Trumbullplex in Detroit has been going for 20 years. It is the real deal. We showed up at a beautiful Victorian house and pulled in behind a beat-up minivan with a 99% bumper sticker. The door to the Theatre was covered in stickers and radical art. This is where I belong. This is Pen Pen occupying some solidarity or whatever.

The show wasn't anything amazing, but the bands, and the few people who were there were all great. What else can you expect for a Wednesday show in Detroit? This band from New Jersey, Melissa and Paul, especially are incredible. We hung out after the show talking politics and drinking cheap beer with a few of the anarchists who live there and some Germans who were visiting. We exchanged stories of protests and political art. And we each got to tell our favorite “that time I was beat up by the cops” story. You know. Wednesday in Detroit. I passed out in the loft above the Zine Library. Oh did I mention they had a Zine Library? Because they did. And it made me very happy. This is Pen Pen reading a love story about cuttlefish.

On our way out of town, we explored Detroit a little. The city is pretty heartbreaking. So many decaying unoccupied beautiful houses, and so many people without homes. But I think about places like the Trumbullplex that are able to thrive in this kind of environment and have some hope. The lone stubborn flower poking up through the cracked concrete. We found this amazing used book store on the way out. Three floors of pretty much any book you could imagine. Including the last 3 books in the Foundation Series which just came in today apparently. This is Pen Pen, victorious above his pulpy sci-fi.

This is a song I wrote one time. You should download it and share it with your friends.