Adventure #88: Caldwell, ID and Sacramento, CA

“No, Nathan, we don't have time to stop at every abandoned building and take pictures.”

“But I wanna...”

“No! We're already running late and we've already stopped at 3 abandoned farm houses today.”

“But it's what I do! It's my thing. It's mine. It's...my precious...”

“Don't care. We don't have time.”

“Fine. [gollum] Asshole.”

This conversation was had out loud. After a few weeks on the road by yourself you start to turn into Gollum. This is Pen Pen stopping anyway.

 Driving alone without anyone to talk to through the mountains for 6 hours, 8 hours, 10 hours a day, and you start to understand that woman on the street who talks to herself. Just loudly enough so you know she knows you hear her. Just quietly enough that you're pretty sure it might be about you. I've often wondered what happened to get someone to that place. It turns out they were touring singer songwriters. All of them. Next time you see someone talking to themselves on the street, ask for a copy of their EP. The piano ballad; track 4? It's actually pretty solid. This is Pen Pen and another abandoned farm house.

New York Nathan barely tolerates whatever it is about him that makes people on the subway think “This guy! This guy with the headphones on, who is clearly focused on writing something in his notebook. This is the guy I should talk to!” But Touring Nathan? He revels in it. Oh? I remind you of your son? Your grandson? Your great grandson? Tell me more! Do you have pictures? You have a dog, too? Do you have pictures of your dog? (I kind of hate dogs, but I love listening to people talk about their dogs. They get so excited about the most mundane things and it's just great.) This is Pen Pen, this time at an abandoned stable!

The show in Caldwell is fun, but definitely small. But the conversation all night is great. And honestly, at this point in the tour, I'm more interested in having some human interaction than performing. Both is the sweet spot, obviously. But 3 weeks in and having driven some 5000 miles by myself? I'll gladly take a night of talking comparative religion and anarchism with some friends I don't get to see often. This is Pen Pen also liking abandoned cars!

Driving south through the mountains the next day to Sacramento is beautiful, but dull. A meaner person would make a joke about some of the people they've dated. I'm not that person. Neither is Pen Pen. He's a penguin, not a person. This is Pen Pen and his ex.

It's amazing the way trees appear almost the second I cross the Nevada-California border. After 8 hours staring at desert brush, trees are a welcome sight. It's as if they're adhering to some ancient treaty.

“OK, fine, California. You guys get all the trees, but we get all the casinos and whores.”

“That sounds like a fair trade, Nevada.”

“Then we declare these borders official!”

“Ha! I tricked you, Nevada, for we have Los Angeles, where young artists gamble their futures and whore themselves out to entertainment companies instead of making that super personal short film about their grandfather they've been talking about since they were kids! AND WE HAVE TREES.”

Nevada shakes it's fist angrily at the sky, for it knows it has been duped. This is Pen Pen and Nevada's famed tree (just kidding, this picture was taken in California; Nevada doesn't have trees, jackass)...

This is a song David Bowie wrote one time. I like this song.

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.