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.
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