King for a Day...Fool for a Lifetime

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 23:53:36 GMT

a certain band as of late has become a problem for me. it's a problem because i can't really listen to much else. that band is called polar bear club.

that is all.

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 01:36:27 GMT

i'm in chicago. tour has been radtacular. ummmm yeah. woo!

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 01:38:16 GMT

Day 14 -

I woke up around 10, took a shower, made a few phone calls, came back to the room and announced my intentions of going to the harbor in case anyone wanted to join me. A few people were asleep still, but matt decided to come with me. We made our way to the newtown subway station amongst all the winners of the area. Seriously there were so many crack heads around it was funny. Definitely reminded me of home. We made it to the harbor and it was a totally different world; tourists everywhere, super nice shops and fancy restaurants. Matt and I putzed around the harbor for a bit, taking pictures and went up to the opera house and took more pics. Matt informed that someone he knew told him that in the botanic gardens, a huge park next to the opera house, there were tons and tons of bats. Since we are both bat enthusiasts we decided to spend time trying to find them. We cruised around the park for almost an hour looking for them. The park is nice, lots of ponds with eels in them that come up to the surface to eat, fountains, statues, weird birds, and trees from all over the world. But we had a hard time finding bats. We were close to giving up, cursing matt’s friend for lying to us when we stumbled into the middle grounds of the park. We looked up and there were fruit bats everywhere. In every tree in this small condensed area there were probably fifty or more bats hanging upside down. It was incredible. Some were flying around too. I was in fruit bat country. Matt and I were wandering around like little kids taking pictures of all the bats. All in all there must’ve been thousands easily.

Sydney Harbor Bridge, The Opera House, Botanic Gardens and tree with bats. All those balls in the trees are bats hanging upside down.

Eventually our excitement subsided and we made our way to the subway. There was a train waiting for us when we got there that was going in the direction we needed so we just hopped. Unfortunately, after stopping at every stop between the harbor and newtown station, it skipped right over newtown. It didn’t end up stopping for another five stops. At that stop we got out and went to one of the platforms. It was completely empty of people and the television monitors said “does not stop” so we were a bit confused. Then a voice came on the loud speaker and said “attention passengers on platform 6...trains do not stop at this platform. Please make your way to platform 3 for next city train, which arrives in 30 seconds.” so we figured this would be our train so we ran over to the platform and hopped on the train. And once again this train skipped our stop again. So we got off two stations away, asked for a bit of directions and then finally caught the right train that stopped at our station.

Sydney subway train. They’re super nice and double-dickered.

By this time I was dying in the desert of starvation so I stopped at a place called clem’s chicken across from the street the hostel was on. I figured since it had my cat’s name in it it was a sign to go there. I bought fries and fried chicken and it turned out to be some of the greasiest food I’ve ever eaten in my life. It felt like grease was pouring out of my pores after it eating it, it was so disgusting. Eventually we met up with weber and ben and went to our show, which was at the club where we pulled the all-nighter in Sydney a week ago. We loaded up all our super heavy equipment up some steep, lame stairs. Total workout. Then we sound checked for half an hour or so which was nice because touring with silverstein we couldn’t sound check because we didn’t headline. After that junior, joe and I went to find food. We stopped at a kebab/pizza place where the clerk talked me into some kind of beef pastry/roll thing that was pretty bad. Strike two on food for the day. We went back to the club for a minute, then joe, matt, weber, weber’s friend stu and I went on a little walk through the city. We made our way through a park in the middle of the city where there tons of bats again. And since it was dusk they were flying around. There were so many it ruled. Off in the distance there was a huge flock of them flying in the sky, and we even passed a cathedral where there were more flying around too. Pretty epic.

Bats at dusk!

We ended up walking down to the harbor and my feet were ready to fall off they were in so much pain. We walked back to the club and it was packed. It was pretty tiny but there were people all up in it. Our set was pretty fun. There wasn’t much room to move on the stage but people were going off. After that we loaded equipment back into the truck and then went into the club and partied. Once again we had endless drink tickets and people were buying us drinks all night. I was pretty drunk by the time I left. And so was everyone else who was drinking. Around 2:30 I went back to the hostel with weber. I walked around with him for a minute and we found a bakery open so I bought some kind of pizza bread there. It wasn’t very good but I was starving so it didn’t really matter. After scarfing that down I passed out.

Day 15 -

By some act of god I actually managed to wake up when my alarm went off at 8:30. I slowly made my way into the shower and got ready. We had to get out of our hostel room by 10 so I started to wake up everyone up. Eventually everyone got going and we were out the door on time, but we had to wait around until 12 for ben to get there with the other van. Mikey and I ate some much needed breakfast at some café. They had free wifi but our laptops were locked in the truck and weber, who had the keys, was nowhere to be found. So we pretty much just stood around on the street looking dumb and feeling like shit until 11:45 when ben showed up and we took off for the airport. Check in was a breeze and everyone went up to the gate. Most people just passed out waiting to get on the plane, but of course I couldn’t sleep at all so I went and bought a new phone card and called alison. The plane trip was short and uneventful. When we got into Melbourne we all voted on going back to lord of the fries for some eats because we were all starving. It was one of the best meals of the trip. My poutine was legendary. After I ate that I got a peanut butter chocolate milk shake from the donut and ice cream shop next door that filled me up even more. Weber then took us to our new hotel which was more like an apartment. But the awesome part is that it’s inside of an old church. The inside though has been renovated into two 3-story, 3-bedroom apartments. It was fantastic. At this point it’s safe to say it was easily my favorite place we stayed at in Australia. we cleaned up a bit and Bronwyn came over with her awesome boston terrier named obo for a minute.

Church apartment in Melbourne and Obo!

Afterwards we went to see clover field, which ended up being a total disappointment. Some of the other guys hated it more than me even. I won’t get into some big long critique here, but there was just so many things I didn’t like about the movie. We took a couple of cab rides back to the apartment and went to the store across the street, which weirdly enough was called safeway. We stocked up on food because we had a full on kitchen at the apartment. I got some awesome satay flavored ramen and a few other things. After eating and writing in my journal I crashed out.

Day 16 -

I woke up and ate some of the muesli I bought at safeway. Eventually everyone stumbled to and weber picked some of us and took us to a breakfast place. I didn’t want to spend much money so I just got fries because it was the cheapest dish. I don’t know why I did that because they weren’t good and I knew I was going to be eating at lord of the fries again later in the day. Whatever. I also called alison using a new phone card I bought the day before in Sydney and my minutes got eaten up immediately. I bought it for five dollars and probably got 40 minutes talking time out of it. Total waste. After eating we went back to the apartment then cruised to bang for sound check. The place seemed so much smaller with no one in there. We took a half hour or so to sound check, then a few of us had to go back to the apartment to pick up some of matt’s stuff. He didn’t come but we made him wait in the choice parking spot we had secured out front so no one else took it. When we got back we found that matt had just left a bunch of crates in the spot to hold it, which was fine, but since he wasn’t out there we decided to fuck with him. I went inside and found him and told him weber was really mad that he had left the spot open and that he had to park somewhere else. So matt jumped up exclaiming that there was no way the parking spot could be taken. By the time he got outside and checked he realized we had pulled a fast one on him. It was pretty funny. We had about 3 hours to kill before our show so a few of us went back to lord of the fries and it was good. We walked back totally full. The show that night was fun, kids were going off, lots of stage dives. It was one of the more memorable shows for me at least. After that it was party time. Once again we had endless drink tickets. It was a lot more crowded this time though, most likely because the rain outside drove everyone inside. It was also really humid and gross. We still had a good time though. I had too many sugar drinks though so by the end of the night I had total sugar gut, it sucked. After bang we once again went to lord of the fries, and once again it was delicious. We got home and I passed out.

Day 17 -

I woke up in the morning with fortunately not much of a hangover. Weber stopped by around noon and took some people down near the water but I stayed behind to do laundry and other stuff.

Suckas at the beach.

I bought a phone card at safeway and called alison. Everyone got back soon after and we went to the liquor store to stock up on some drinks for the party we were planning that night. After that we just chilled for a while until about 7 when weber picked us up again and took us to a greek place where ben and Nigel bought us dinner. It was excellent. Definitely the best greek food I’ve ever had. We had lamb, chicken, calamari, shrimp, dolmas and a bunch of other great stuff.

Go greek.

Then we went back home and waited for all the people we had invited the night before at bang to show up. Around 10:30 a van load of about 25 people showed up. They were pretty much a bunch of dudes from perth who were on tour. They brought the party for sure. Mikey had a mini beer bong you put on beer bottles to essentially shot gun them that got put to good use. We played some drinking games, mikey and I challenged big jim and another guy to a beer pong game. We were down for a lot of it but in the end we were victorious after a great comeback and an epic final shot. Good times. After the band left we went to the casino which was absolutely ginormous. I didn’t bet anything but I just watched junior play. Friends of a girl who came out to visit matt were there too. One of them was fairly nuts, but the pit boss punked her out a few times. Pretty hilarious. When we got home I passed out right away.

Day 18 -

Everyone stumbled to in the morning, weber came and picked us all up after we checked out. We packed everything in the van, got food near the hotel and then went downtown so junior and craig could exchange some money and get travellers checks. It ended up taking awhile, so matt Jordan and I went to a star bucks where there was some kid working who knew who we were because he saw us play with silverstein the week before. After the money business was handled we went to our next hotel which was a formula 1 out by the airport. We basically checked in got settled for a bit then weber took us back to town because we were too far out to do anything fun. We first went to weber’s apartment so he could change up really quick. Then for the last time on the trip we went to lord of the fries and it was glorious. A couple girls junior had met one of the past couple nights met up with us there. I also got a donut after fries and felt like a total fatty. It ruled. Then we went down to the river for a minute and snapped a couple of pictures. I got a free visor from dudes on segue ways handing out promo stuff for garnier. It was pretty bro-riffic. Then we went to an arcade near weber’s place where we played some air hockey and basketball games to win tickets. I won 63 and got a sticky hang and a mini woopie cushion that ended up breaking a few minutes after I started using it. Then we went to the me first and the gimme gimmes show that we got into for free. It was pretty lame. They were way fucked up on stage. Bronwyn met us outside a bit later so we got to say goodbye to her. After that we went back to casino. It wasn’t long before matt and I decided we couldn’t stay awake so we walked back to the van that was parked a couple blocks away. When we got to where we thought the van was parked we couldn’t find it; we thought we took a wrong turn or maybe it was further up the street so we kept walking. We saw another van in the distance so we figured that was it but when we got to it it wasn’t. we walked back again by where we thought it was and I noticed broken glass on the ground. We started to get pretty worried, so we looked around the corner and went a bit up the street to make sure the van wasn’t somewhere else then pretty much decided that it had indeed been stolen. We went back to the casino to get weber and everyone else and then came back with them. Weber confirmed it was gone. He called the cops and they came and he filled out a report. There wasn’t much else we could do but go back to the casino and catch a cab to the hotel. It was kind of a lame way to have to say goodbye to weber but that’s how it goes. Kind of a lame way to end such an awesome trip too. Fortunately all of our stuff was back at the hotel so nothing major got stolen of our’s except for matt’s ipod, which still definitely sucks. We took a cab back to the hotel and I conked out.

Day 19 -

We woke up pretty early in the morning to go to the airport. We were just going to walk there because it was literally a block away so we grabbed a bunch of carts to put our luggage on. We grabbed one that was sitting right outside the lobby and german lady appeared out of nowhere and yelled at us because it was her’s. she tried putting her bags on the thing but her hands were full so craig helped her out a bit by moving the cart towards and she just snapped at him. He told her he was just helping her and all she could say was “oh, well I’m not used to people being nice in this country.” seems pretty weird, I met nothing but nice people in Australia. We made the trek over to the airport and got all our stuff checked in with not much difficulty. We got to the gate and waited. Our boarding had come and gone and the gate people made no mention about boarding the plane. A little while later they said the flight was delayed because of maintenance issues so they gave everyone who was on the flight free 6 dollar food vouchers for the café in the terminal. Another hour went by and they announced again the repair crew couldn’t fix the plane but they’d have it done soon. So we waited. For another hour. Then they announced again we were still delayed so they gave us 14 dollar vouchers this time. After another hour they finally told everyone on the flight to come to the gate. They said the maintenance crew couldn’t fix the problem so the flight was cancelled. Instead they were going to redirect us to Sydney where we would hop on a plane to Tokyo. What a pain in the ass. They told us customs knew we were going back through so it wouldn’t be a problem, except that when we got back to customs they told us we couldn’t do it. So we go back to the gate and ask what the deal was and they told us we had to go downstairs through the other customs checkpoint. Thanks for making that clear, Qantas. They told us our luggage would be at carousel 3 but only half of our stuff came out there. Then some other Qantas lady tells us the rest of the luggage is waiting near carousel 4. Thanks again. They had told us to go to check in counter 41 and 42 to check in for the Sydney flight but we get there and they had no idea what we were talking about. We finally found where to go on our own. Thanks one more time Qantas. We spent another few hours in the Melbourne airport and then flew to Sydney where we spent another 3 hours. Fortunately there was another 15 dollar voucher waiting for us there. We got some pretty good noodle food. We boarded the flight around 9:30 at night. The flight was pretty boring, I got a little sleep but not very much. We arrived in japan around 6 in the morning.

Crashed out at the Melbourne airport.

Day 20 -

Customs was easy as shit in japan. No hassles whatsoever. We were greeted by bruce pahey, the guy who put out syg’s record in japan. He’s aussie so it was weird being in japan and hearing more Australian accents. He was also with uchu, who plays drums in endzweck and organized all the shows we played and tomo, a chill dude. A few of the guys went with bruce in his car, matt, mikey joe and I crammed into uchu‘s van with all the bags. We all had to sit across the bench seat and it was so uncomfortable. Not to mention hot because we all threw on our jackets while we waited for uchu to pull the van up. The van ride was super long because there was so much traffic once we got into Tokyo. It took about two hours for us to get to our hotel and my nuts were dying from being scrunched together.

View from our hotel room…cold and snowy outside.

Our hotel was alright though, me craig and mikey split a room. Friends of Jordan’s family from Japan had sent him a greeting gift of huge strawberries and a large bottle of sake. We also were given kimonos and slippers in our hotel to use during our visit. Pretty sweet.

Sake, kimonos and really huge strawberries.

I tried taking a nap for an hour or so but it wasn’t really happening. I took a shower and went out with craig and joe to try and find an atm and some food but none of the atm’s around would take my card, and no food places would take my card. Plus it was cold as shit and snowing so we weren’t having it. But I did enjoy walking around because it honestly felt like I was in some other dimension. Being around all the bright neon signs and Japanese writing was just crazy. Plus there were people everywhere. But I liked it, it was an intense energy. But without food or cash all we could do was go back to the hotel and wait for someone to show us what was up. A couple hours later graham pahey and yuta met us in the lobby and took us to the show via the subway. We caught the train at Shinjuku station which apparently is the busiest subway station in the world. There were seriously people everywhere it was intense. We took the train a few stops away to harajuku station. We walked down a small but busy street packed with shoe and clothing stores and awesome looking crepe stops. But since I had no cash on me all I could do was grow hungrier.

Harajuku.

We were about to get to the show when we ran into paul and shane from silverstein, who had been in japan for the last week. They were actually fairly stoked to see us, so it was a nice feeling to see someone familiar. We went into the club and saw the rest of the silverstein guys, who were also stoked to see us. Then we sound checked and after that yuta took mikey and I to get to cash and sushi. We ate at this great cheap place that just had the sushi going around on a track that you just pick what you want from. It was great. Definitely hit the spot.

Sushi!

After that we went back to the club and chilled until we played. It was pretty fun, there were a few people who knew our stuff. After we played I drank some beers backstage, then after silverstein’s set we said goodbye to them and took off. We walked back to harajuku station, but on the way there we were behind some girls who were at the show. They noticed us so they took us into this place that had a ton of photo booths. We all crammed into a decent sized one and took a bunch of pictures with them and some other dudes. It was pretty funny. Graham and bruce were getting a kick out of it.

When we got back to Shinjuku they took us to this restaurant that had karaoke. It was a total party that night. We downed ridiculous amounts of saki, ate some great Japanese food and had a blast singing karaoke. Tome, one of the guys with us, a big awesome Japanese dude, was easily bringing the party the most. He was double fisting this crazy looking drinks, including this bright blue drink called titanics. The dude was off the chain. We sang a slew of songs, like message in a bottle, since you’ve been gone, toto’s Africa, and tome’s favorite glycerin. It was a great night. Whoever was drinking was epicly drink. We pretty much agreed it was at that point the greatest night of tour. We walked back to the hotel and we passed out.

Karaoke awesomeness.

Day 21 -

I woke up not too hungover, but super hungry. I took a shower, and matt, mikey, Jordan and I went to find the train station to take us to harajuku again. We totally got lost though. After 20 minutes or so of not knowing where the fuck to go I was getting annoyed and really really hungry. Finally we just said fuck it and ate at a sushi place in the Shinjuku area. It was pretty awesome. I ate a ton of sushi for about 11 bucks. Good times.

Matt, Jordan and I walking around Shinjuku and our sushi feast.

After that we had more time to kill before lobby call so we just putzed around. We went to a 7-11 to experience that, and it was quite an experience. Totally different. All sorts of fresh foods and weird candies. After that we went to an arcade. Mikey and I played one of those time based music games like guitar hero but it was on these huge conga drums. It was pretty fun. Inside mikey played a game similar to the games where you try to drop coins in front a little bar that tries to push them down into a hole, but it was with candy instead, and you try to knock over a huge stack of candy. Mikey was trying to knock down a stack of apple and green tea kit kats. (kit kats in other countries are way better than those in the US I’ve decided. So many different and better flavors.) after putting in seven or eight coins he finally managed to knock a bunch off, but they went into the little revolving moat of candy. Eventually it caused a back up and all the candy stopped, while the little track they were on kept going. Other people playing couldn’t play, so a lady who worked there had to come over and unclog the river. It was pretty funny. We then walked back to the hotel. Yuta took us to the show that night which was at a little place called the wall. It was a bit smaller than westcoast worldwide. We sound checked and then walked around up the street. A few of us went to McDonald’s, which was actually fairly decent. I had a cheeseburger with egg and bacon on it. It wasn’t too bad. After that we stopped in an am/pm, which are everywhere in Tokyo and bought some cool Japanese snacks. Then we walked back to the club right in time for the first band, cleave who was not too bad. Kind of melodic hardcore. I finally got to see endzweck too, who really impressed me. I had heard them on cd before but didn’t really catch on. But seeing them live definitely won me over. A few other bands played then it was our turn at the end. It was a great set. Pretty much everyone was going off for us. Easily one of the funnest on tour so far.

Backstage.

After that we took pictures with a bunch of people and I got to meet miyumi, a girl from japan who the guys were telling me about. She’s pretty much set your goal’s number one fan because she’s flown out to California from japan twice to see them. She was with her friend miko, and both of them were really awesome. Totally friendly. We just shot the shit with them and a bunch of other people before making the trek all the way from the show back to the hotel because by this time it was past midnite and the trains had stopped running. At this point my legs and feet had given up all hope of rest. I think I was running solely on will. A few of the guys took off for mcd’s again but graham, yuta and tome took us to a great noodle spot. I ordered just a basic udon noodle bowl that came with some tofu. You have the option to order with 1, 2 or 3 servings of noodles for no additional price so I got 3. The bowl came and it was no joke the biggest bowl of udon noodle soup I had ever seen. I knew there was no way I’d finish it. It also didn’t help that at this point I was getting a bit sick, and had sore throat and tongue so I hurt to eat. It wouldn’t have mattered either way though because this thing was so ginormous and unbeatable. I ate what I could and we called it a night.

Epic udon.

Day 22 -

We woke up, showered, went downstairs and checked out. The hotel was cool enough to hold onto our big baggage until we came back in a few days. We went to shibuya with graham, which is like the times square of Tokyo. It was pretty crazy, bright lights everywhere and tons and tons of people. It was also where a lot of Lost In Translation was filmed.

Shibuya.

A few of us stopped and ate at this ramen house where you order at a machine outside and they seat you inside at a counter. It was really good. After that we went to a record shop. A few of the other guys were fully caught up in record shopping so the rest of us went back to the shibuya train station to wait for miyumi and miko.

Kicking it by the dog at Shibuya station.

They showed up pretty soon, graham took off and we went back to get the other guys back at the record store. After we managed to finally pull them away from their shopping we stopped at some five story store that had a bunch of random stuff, including a bunch of cool random Japanese toys I bought for people back at home. After that we stopped at this great bubble tea and crepe joint where I got this awesome hot white chocolate milk tea. I held off of a crepe for now though.

Bubbre tea and crepes.

Then we went to a huge tower records store which was five stories high. I thought it was funny there’s not only a tower records in japan, but it was that huge. We met some kid in the store who apparently knew set your goals so we took some pictures with him. Another guy who worked there knew us and put on mutiny on the pa music.

Now playing.

Group picture in the middle of the huge intersection at Shibuya.

After that we went to harajuku. A few of us stopped at a good crepe spot. I got a banana chocolate cheesecake crepe that was pretty divine. Out on the main street there were about 7 fire trucks at one corner but there didn’t look to be much going on.

Goof.

Then we went to kiddy land, a 5 story toy store that was fucking unreal. I had never seen a bigger collection of bizarre Japanese toys. There was pretty much one floor dedicated to hello kitty stuff. I spent a ton of money on toys there for people back home. Probably too much actually. After about an hour in there we went back to the hotel to meet up with yuta and tome. Before we walked in yuta stopped us outside and told us to be a bit quiet because there were two guys talking inside who he thought were yakuza, and they were discussing some serious shit. It was pretty crazy to think about. Graham and yuta had told us how yakuza pretty much runs the country, but we didn’t think they’d show up in our hotel. At some point a bunch of other guys rushed inside to meet the other two. It was weird. Nothing happened though. After that we went to a sushi bar right down the street from the hotel and loaded up on cheap sushi. Everything at this place was 1.37, it was good times. From there we took a super long subway ride to Kawasaki.

On the train.

When we got to the hotel the first thing I noticed was the mecca of meccas, the holy of holies the one thing I had been searching for the entire I was in japan….a beer vending machine. It was like heaven had fallen to earth in this one hotel lobby for me to enjoy. I let out the biggest shout of joy ever that startled everyone in the lobby, including the rest of the band. It was great. Uchu met us there and bought me a beer. It was bliss.

The culmination of all things holy.

For another hour or so I just chilled in the lobby because there was free wifi there. Eventually I made my way back upstairs. Mikey and I checked out the bidet part of the toilet, it was pretty hilarious when it shot everywhere in the bathroom. The heater in the room sucked though, it wouldn’t fire up. It just did nothing. Except 4 hours later in the middle it just turned on out of nowhere and turned the room into an oven. I didn’t mind though because I was feeling like shit at this point.

Day 23 -

I woke up around 8 still feeling like shit. I went downstairs to check out the free breakfast. It was way Japanese….rice cakes, pickled vegetables and miso soup. My mouth was still sore and dying so I had a bit of miso then went back upstairs and cleaned up. An hour later everyone met up downstairs, checked out and took off for the show which was just 10 minutes walk away. I found our way to our dressing room (every band had their own which ruled), dropped off our stuff, then went out to get food. Mikey and I ended up going to mos burger which was alright. It was still painful to eat though. I also bought a pair of mittens for 100 yen which was nice. We went back to the venue and just sort of putzed around the rest of the night. Grabbed some free food from the show, changed strings…the usual. Our set was pretty fun, aside from the fact the amp I was using sounded like garbage. But kids were pretty into it. During the “da da da” part in echoes tons of kids swarmed the stage and were everywhere. It was awesome.

Kawasaki show during Bane.

After our set I slept a bit, then we met up with miko and mayumi again and we walked around trying to find food. We thought we had a serious time constraint so we settled on some downstairs place that was actually pretty good. Most of us got some really good seafood yakisoba.

Yakisoba and a normal Japanese cell phone. It’s got TV on it, no big deal.

After that we made our way back to the venue where we thought the bus that was going to take us through the night to Osaka would be waiting for us, but instead it wasn’t. all the other american bands were just lounging around waiting. Most of the sworn enemy guys were pretty wasted and providing plenty of entertainment for the rest of us. After a couple hours of nothing the bus finally showed up. Us, sworn enemy, bane, silent drive, misery signals and comadre all crammed in for the miserable 8 hour drive to Osaka. There was some metal box underneath the seat in front of me so I couldn’t stretch my legs out at all so I was fairly in pain. It sucked. At about 10 in the morning we arrived in Osaka tired and worn out.

The Bus of Misery.

Day 24 -

We shuffled over to the club, which was way smaller than the Kawasaki venue, threw our stuff down and ventured out for food. Most of us went to another burger place called freshness burger. It was pretty good. At this point I didn’t even care though I was so out of it. A few of us walked around a bit then went to an internet café. I got online for a minute. We found out they had showers there too so I decided I would come back after we played our set. I was feeling pretty grimey. I could barely stay awake before our set. I remember falling asleep sitting up in the chair I was in in the dressing room and someone waking me up 10 minutes before we went on. I figured I’d be dead during our set and it wouldn’t be any fun. It actually turned out to be a lot of fun and I was pretty energetic during it. But for how good our set was it was surprising we only sold 1 shirt and 5 hoodies. I can’t remember any time I was in syg that we sold that little at a show as packed as the Osaka one was. Neither could any of the other guys. Oh well. After our set I went back to the interent café, got online again for 20 minutes and then took a shower. Their shower was actually super nice. And they give you 45 minutes. That was way more than enough time. It was probably the best shower of the trip, because at that point for the first time on the tour I actually felt like I was on tour, all dirty and gross. I think the place ended up charging me more than I thought they would because it was 800 yen for the 20 minutes of internet and the shower. But I didn’t really care because that’s less than 8 dollars. Well worth it.

Supercool internet café.

I went back to the club for a minute, then ventured out to find food. Osaka was a bit less tourist friendly than Tokyo, at least the area we were in, because there were no picture menus or prices written out in English numbers like most places in the areas of Tokyo we were in. because of this I was having a hard time finding a place to eat. I went into one place asking if they at least had yakisoba and the guy, who barely understood me, said they had pad thai for 1840 yen, around 18 bucks. Yeah fuck that. I just went to the am/pm and bought some sushi, noodles and pork bun for about 800 yen. It ruled.

Weird Osaka street lights that look like people.

After the show was finally over we packed everything back to the bus. Before I got in I tried one of joe’s takoyaki, which is octopus in a bread ball. It’s supposed to be an Osaka speciality, but I thought it was kind of gross. Not the octopus part, but the texture of the ball was gross. Pretty soon everyone was on the bus and we took off for Kawasaki. The bus ride again was pretty miserable, but it felt like it was a lot shorter than the first one at least.

Day 25 -

When we arrived in Kawasaki we were informed the vans to take us back to Tokyo wouldn’t be there for another two hours so we had to kill time. Yuta took us to Jonathon’s, a Japanese denny’s-style restaurant. I had some French toast and eggs, bacon and sausage that was alright. We all just lounged around the restaurant dozing off until it was time to go. We ended up taking the subway back to Shinjuku, so I have no idea why we had to wait, but we couldn’t check back into our hotel until 12 anyways so I guess it didn’t really matter. When we got up to our hotel room I went right to sleep. I woke up a few hours later and showered. Mikey, matt and I went and took a walk. I grabbed a couple pork buns and then we went to don Quixote’s, a four story store downtown. They didn’t have much that was interesting though, except for the boob pillow that matt bought. On the way back I stopped in tons of convenient stores and bought some more toys and candy to bring home. By the time we got back to the hotel I had almost no money left.

Matt and super huge grapefruits. Yep…grapefruits.

Later in the evening graham and bruce took everyone back to that udon place. This time I had nabe udon, which was udon soup with unagi, tempura shrimp, chicken and shitake. It was really good and really filling. We went back to the hotel, took some pictures in our Japanese robes, showed off the tour video mikey made and went to bed.

Set Your Gols

Day 26 -

I woke up around 11. The day was a pretty chill one because we were going to meet up with graham and bruce around 1, so there wasn’t much to do. A few of us walked around a bit, I tried out a burger place that I promised I would try because their burgers looked good called lotteria. It was so so, the picture of the burger obviously looked way better than it really was. About 1 yuta, uchu, tome, graham and bruce showed up. We said goodbye to graham and tome, then took off for the airport. This time mikey, matt, joe and I went in bruce’s car so we weren’t so crammed together. Because it was in the afternoon there was less traffic too. We had to wait at the airport for about an hour for another driver to show up with our instruments before we could check in. we finally checked our stuff in with a minimal amount of hassle. Before we crossed the security checkpoint mayumi showed up. She works in the airport at one of the souvenir shops, but it was her day off. She gave us each some presents. We got a little bookmark, a japan pin and cool Japanese socks that have a little space for the big toe. Mine had a big dragon on it, pretty much ruled. We said goodbye to her, bruce, uchu and yuta and made our way to the gate. We had an hour or so to wait by the time there, but luckily there was a little food shop there. I wish I had more money because they had cartons of a whole bunch of different kit kat flavors, like caramel, hazelnut, strawberry, vanilla bean and cookies n cream. I envy other countries for their awesome selection of kit kats. Our boarding of the flight was delayed a bit because the plane got there a bit late. The flight itself was boring, but I had trouble sleeping. It didn’t help that they didn’t serve food until two hours into the flight and they didn’t turn the lights off so people could sleep until about six hours into the flight. By the time we landed I was dead. It wasn’t too much fun either when homeland security randomly selected me to search through my bags for a half hour, leaving everyone else and alison waiting and worrying at the exit for me. When I finally stepped through the exit doors it was a total moment of elation, both from being in the US finally and getting to see alison, I was stoked to see her I could hardly contain myself. I lept into her arms and gave her the biggest hug and kiss ever. It ruled. The end.

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 01:36:44 GMT

ok so i finally finished my tour journal and put pictures into it and it's awesome. it's so long though i had to put it into 2 parts. read it if you're bored!

Day 1 -
We all met up at sfo and checked in our huge amount of luggage without any problems.

Waiting in the airport.

While we were waiting for our plane at the gate some Australian girl asked why there were so many of us flying together and I told her we were in a band. We asked her stuff about Australia. It seemed kind of weird that she just started talking to us but I guess it was a good sign of how nice aussies can be. The plane we flew in was a huge 747 and it ruled. They hooked us up with so many things: free wine and beer, two good meals, snacks, a little to go pouch thingy with a sleeping mask and socks and tons of free movies. Seriously there were probably 50 movies to choose from. I ended up watching shrek 3 and part of fear and loathing in las vegas.

Royalty on board.

The flight was super long and there was tons of turbulence but I ended sleeping probably half the flight so that was good. Oh and our flight attendant was this totally awesome Australian guy. You could tell on his off days he was probably some total rager or scumbag, or both; he just didn’t seem like a flight attendant at all, it was awesome. He gave us a list of all the beaches we should check out in the big cities, and I couldn’t read his handwriting at all. Plus all the beaches had weird names so it made it even harder.

We went through some time warp on the way to Sydney because it was two days later or something when we got there. Customs and all that was fairly hassle free. We went to another part of the airport and waited another 8 hours for our next flight to take us to perth. Some of us dined on some hungry jack’s, which is the Australian equivalent to burger king. Same logo and all. I guess there already was a burger king in Australia when they came over so they had to change the name. pretty awesome.

Not to be confused with Jack In The Box.

A few of us got calling cards and it was kind of weird getting them to finally work. I slept some more on the 4 hour flight to perth. When we got to perth we were greeted by the head of the promotional company who booked the whole tour, Nigel and his man weber who was the stage manager more or less. They both looked like your ordinary hardcore kids, with tons of tattoos and band shirts and whatnot but seemed way professional and on top of their shit. Plus they were super nice. After getting our bags we piled into a couple of cars they had rented and went to the hotel they had reserved for us. This place was so baller. We had 2 rooms for just our band and there were 4 beds in each room and 2 bathrooms. Totally nice. At this point we felt like we were treated like royalty.

Saville Park Baller Suites

That night we went to some really good vegetarian Chinese place called Utopia.

Utopia…literally.

After that weber and another guy in their crew took us to this huge club where the owner comped us 100 bucks in drinks. He gave us a little card that had the money on it and it seriously seemed to never end. I swear we ended up getting 50 drinks on that thing. For such a huge and nice club it was really empty. Especially for a Friday. But just about all the girls in there were really good looking. Weber was telling us how perth is known for having really hot girls and you could tell he was right. The club was really huge though, and the surprising lack of people made it seem even bigger. The place seemed like it could be really popular too, but according to weber it was fairly new. There was a huge outside area with a stage with go go dancer cages. But then at 12 they turned the lights on and closed the whole place. Kind of lame, but we were all really tired at that point so we didn’t care. We went back to the hotel and crashed out.

Day 2-

I woke up around 5 and could not get back to sleep until 6:30. It sucked. I tried getting online via wifi in the hotel but you have to pay for it. Extremely gay. Joe matt mikey and I went to get food and find some internet café or something. This is pretty much when it dawned on us how expensive Australia is. Even though the american dollar is worth a bit more than the aussie dollar, to compensate for it they just jack up the price on everything. I bought a little key chain thingy for my tour pass and it was 3 Australian dollars, which is about 2.50 american. Beers here are way more, everything is.

We found a food court in some mall downtown and ate there. Joe and matt had some dishes with shrimp that were way good. All the seafood we were told here is great. I had some curry dish that was decent. We walked around and bit more, found a target and got some sunblock and met up with craig and junior. At this point we were all fairly dying from the heat. It wasn’t too bad but still coming from america where it’s cold now it was a bit weird. We found a little internet place that wasn’t too expensive, only 1 dollar for 15 minutes. We met up in the lobby an hour later and went to the show. This was about 2 o clock and our show started at 8 so we had too much time to kill.

The Capitol, where we played our first show.

After getting our gear in order and some free vans we took off to get more food which of course was all expensive. We stopped at some Belgian beer pub and a few of us had some hoe gardens which of course were great.

Best order number ever at the Belgian beer pub.

After that I had a steak kebab pita that was excellent. Then we just hung around the venue and waited. And waited. And probably did a little more waiting. Finally we played our first show in Australia and it was fucking awesome. Tons of kids were going off, it was a really good time. I fucked up a couple parts but nothing too bad. Amon amarth was playing a show right next door to ours so I went in there for a minute after we played to check them out but it was way too hot in there so I left.

Amon Amarth

I went back into the dressing room and started drinking beers with joe. By the time we left I was definitely drunk it ruled.

DRUNK.

But there was a ton of beer left in our room so we put a couple six packs in a water bottle case and joe carried it out to the car we were taking back to the hotel. On the way out some guy stopped joe and was super pissed, yelling at him that he couldn’t take beer out of the club. At first joe was like what the fuck why are you taking my beer but dude yelled back that he worked there and would get fired if he let him so he took it away from joe and we were assed out of beer. It didn’t really matter though at that point because I was nice and drunk and tired. Bronwyn, our tour manager took us back to the hotel and I had intended to just put my stuff upstairs and go out again, but I laid down on the couch in the room and just passed out. I somehow woke up later in my bed with just my shorts on, not quite sure how that happened. I could hear Jordan and matt talking to some girl that I can only assume they picked up after the show. But then I heard her leave so nothing must’ve happened there.

By this point I’ve come to the conclusion that Australians are super friendly people and I’d be totally into coming back here for vacation. As long as I could afford it.

Day 3 -

I woke up with a killer hangover at like 7 in the morning. Sleeping in is virtually impossible in Australia for me because of the time change. Plus whenever I’m hungover I’m terrible at sleeping; my body just doesn’t let me do it. Anyways, Mikey, Matt and I went to the restaurant in the hotel across the street from our’s to get food. Mikey and I had their continental buffet breakfast which was pretty good. We loaded up pretty well. Matt however declined the buffet and instead ordered the vegetable breakfast off the menu. What he got could really only be described as “swamp food.” It was a huge Portobello mushroom, steamed spinach, grilled onions, potatoes and a tomato half, but it all looked so incredibly unappetizing and dirty. Matt had a few bites and pretty much couldn’t put anymore down. It also didn’t help that he doused it with some gnarly smelling and tasting white pepper.

Matt and his awesome swamp food breakfast.

After mikey and I stuffed ourselves to the brim and matt was thoroughly disillusioned with his creature from the black lagoon meal we met everyone else in the lobby and took off for Freemantle, which was about twenty or thirty minutes south of perth. We loaded in at the venue and chilled out for awhile. The show was an 18 and under show. Under. That makes no sense to me. Basically we were playing a kids’ show. A wondershowzen. Whatever. I ventured off for a bit and made some phone calls. I didn’t really bother to explore freemantle but it seemed really touristy. I think it was a beach town, but I didn’t discover exactly where the water was.

Joe in Fremantle.

Apparently back at the club there was a wireless internet connection but of course again it didn’t work. The myth that Australia was the land of no interent is alive and well at this point.

Matt asleep back stage due to lack of internet.

Nigel gathered a few of us and took us to see bon scott’s grave though. It was surprisingly very unostentatious. It was just another little plaque in a row of plaques. There were of course beer cans and a whiskey bottle there though, amongst flowers. Junior joe and I left picks. His mom also made a gate out on the sidewalk that said bon scott memorial. It was pretty cool. Nigel told us how Australians still hate on brian Johnson because he’s not bon scott.

Joe and I ate Bon’s grave and the memorial gate his mom put up for him leading to the sidewalk.

The two roadies for silverstein took turns driving to and from the cemetery. They said it wasn’t too hard to get into the swing of it.

The Indian Ocean.
Our set that night was just kind of eh. The young crowd seemed kind of awkward. Matt would ask how they were doing and the response would just be silence. And it was really hot on stage too. Kind of sucked. After the show both bands went back to utopia, the vegetarian Chinese place. I had a great spicy chicken dish and a couple bubble teas. We all pretty much agreed that if utopia was in sf, we’d all go there all the time it was so good. I loved how you would just write your own order down on a slip of paper and give it to them at the cashier. Pretty simple. After that we were all pretty much dead but a few of us managed to watch some wondershowzen before nodding off.

Day 4 -

I didn’t wait for anyone this morning to get any food, I just took a shower and took off. I got some food at the supermarket across the street and it was really cheap. I got a meat pie and salad for six bucks. I kind of wished I had been doing that the whole time. Oh well. It was pretty good too. Alison called me while I was in the room so I got to talk to her. That was good. Even though I was talking with food in my mouth the whole time. Everyone met up in the lobby and we were off to the perth airport. Because of it being Monday and everyone going home from the big music festival over the weekend it was an absolute clusterfuck. The airport was about the size of the Oakland airport but it was packed to the brim. But we managed to get our stuff checked in with no real hassle. After getting past security mikey, craig, joe (whose birthday was today) and I had some beers at a little café. We all asked for crown lagers, one of the bigger beers in aus but the server recommended us the local beers. We all get it but then realized it was just some con because the local beer is a dollar more than everything else. Whatever. At least it was decent. But after that I had a pint of victoria bitter, which seems like the Budweiser of aus. We watched some great late 80’s early 90’s music videos on their tv.

Bar in the Perth airport.

We boarded our plane, but I forgot my bag with the laptop back at the gate. Oops. Luckily they were cool about me going to get it and Jordan had it with him. The flight was pretty fun actually, a bunch of us took pics with a sleeping craig. a lot of beer was drank too.

We connected in Adelaide but it wasn’t really a connection; we pretty much just got off the plane and got right back on the same one. Not sure how that works. This flight was mellower, I watched an Australian movie called September. It was eh. And of course more beer was had. Spider web and Bronwyn were there to meet us in Brisbane, but a few of our bags didn’t make it past perth. But the airline had it handled to send them to the hotel the next day. We got to our hotel which, again was totally baller and nice. Separate rooms, a kitchen. Good times. There was even a tennis court.

Lobby at The Point Hotel.
The weather was super muggy in Brisbane. Bronwyn and web took a few of us to get food. Driving around the city it really remind me of seattle, but nicer. A few bridges over a centralized body of water and lots of hills. Kind of reminded of Vancouver too. More palm trees though. I had another awesome kebab. So good. Then we went back to the hotel and crashed out.

Brisbane.

Day 5 -

I woke up pretty early in the morning and wrote the preceding journal entry. At around 11 a bunch of us met in the lobby and Bronwyn took us to this koala sanctuary that was more like just a real zoo. Some guy who works there let us all in for free, some awesome Australian thing they do for bands just about anywhere. Way different than the u.s. where people couldn’t give two shits about bands. Anyways, we pretty much started with taking our pictures with koalas which was awesome. The koala we all took our pics with was named jagger, she was really mellow. I assume they just give her some sedative so she doesn’t freak out when people get their picture taken with her but I could be wrong. It only cost us 5 bucks each as opposed to the usual 20 or so because we were in bands. We got to pick up copies of our pics that the zoo photographer took us. Inside the little gift shop where we picked up the pics there was a ton of pictures of famous people and bands that took their pics with the koalas, like new found glory, marilyn manson, bonnie raitt, Mikhail gorbechav, as I lay dying and tons more. It was pretty cool. After we gathered our pictures we went and hung out with the kangaroos. That was awesome because there were seriously about fifty of them and they pretty much were all really calm and just chilling. We all got a ton of pics with all of them. One, who I assume was the alpha male had some seriously huge low hanging testicles. It was definitely a sight to be seen. I was pretty wary at first of the roos because I thought they might just go bezerk at any second but they were actually really chill. After the kangaroos we only had a limited amount of time so we went and checked out some dingos really quick, as well as some fruit bats and parrots that said goodbye as you left. Pretty neat.

Before we headed back to the hotel we stopped at some mall food court downtown where I had one of the greatest burgers of my life. It had cheese, onions, lettuce, tomatoes, pineapple, bacon and a fucking fried egg. So goddamn delicious. It probably took a few months off my life…no regrets though.

Epic burger is epic.

After that we went back to the hotel and then reconvened to head to the venue. It was pretty boring waiting for the show to begin but we walked for about a half hour before just to kill some time. And of course me joe and mikey dipped into the beer in the dressing room. We played a couple hours later and it was a lot of fun. Not a whole lot of people knew the songs but we still all had a good time. After our set we just drank beer with full force and didn’t stop. Us and pretty much everyone else on the tour who was drinking all were pretty smashed. I met a lot of the dudes in deez nuts, who were all really down to the earth guys. Pretty much just reinforced the fact that just about all Australians are super nice people. After the show we went back to the hotel and joe mikey and I tried to go to the bar down the street but when we got there it was closed. My feet were killing me with all the walking so I just walked back barefoot. Back in the room mikey and I ordered some fries and potato wedges that were super delicious. After finished those off it was bedtime.

Day 6 -

I woke up in the morning with a pretty decent hangover, but then again nothing I hadn’t handled before. We met up in the lobby and Bronwyn took us to this place called the alibi club. People were telling me they had some epic breakfast but I didn’t really know what to expect so I figured fuck it might as well get out of the hotel room for a bit. Upon showing up there it definitely reminded me a lot of rudy’s, at least with the full on hipster clientele and funky atmosphere. But that made it pretty comfortable and familiar at least to me. So back to the epic breakfast, I ordered something called the trucker’s breakfast, it sounded pretty good. It arrived fairly quickly and consisted of this: coffee, orange juice, toast, two fried eggs, hash browns, French fries, spinach, mushrooms, baked beans, a half tomato, sausage, bacon and steak and it was fucking AWESOME. Easily the best breakfast I’ve ever had. I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise. I was so unbelievably full after that I could barely walk. We went back to the hotel room and I tried to take a nap but it just didn’t really happen.

We went to the venue, I changed my strings and we just did more chilling. Went to the convenient store next door but that was about it. A bit later we played one of the worst sets ever. The stage basically had three levels, so when I was down on the lowest level I couldn’t hear anything but myself but the cabinets were blasting right into my ears. Everyone agreed the set was just terrible. I messed up essentially every song. It was just embarrassing, for me at least.

Worst set ever.

After the show we went back to the alibi and I got another great Australian burger, with the fried eggs etc. I ate half of that and brought back the rest to the hotel room, where I passed out accordingly upon returning there.

Day 7 -

We woke up pretty early, 7 o clock for lobby call. I finished the remaining half of my burger from the last night really quick. From there we went straight to the airport and got everything checked in with really no hassle or problems. Huge surprise there. The flight was fairly short and uneventful. We got into Sydney and Bronwyn took us to an area in Sydney that reminded me a bit of haight street and a lot like capitol hill in seattle. Bronners took junior and me to a thai place called thai tanic that was awesome. I had a great panang curry with tofu and veggie dish that filled me the rest of the day. After that we went to the hotel which was really really nice. The rooms we stayed in were huge, there was a Jacuzzi tub in each bathroom, and an HDTV.

Meriton Hotel in Sydney, the view from it and Mikey.

We didn’t get to settle in too much though because we all wanted to check out the beach. So we took off for the venue which was at the new south wales university. From there scott the driver took us to bondi beach which was one of the nicest beaches I’ve ever been to. The water was super warm and we all went body surfing. Lots of fun.

Bondi Beach.

An hour later weber picked us up and we went back to the venue. Our show that night was easily the best so far. The sound was decent and the crowd was really going off. After our set we goofed around, of course, writing dirty notes on little fliers for the after show party that we threw into the crowd. At first I thought that I wasn’t going to get to the after show party because we had a 6 o clock lobby call but eventually I figured fuck it and I decided I would pull an all nighter. Before we left I met some girl who had a California tattoo on her back so I started talking to her and found out she lived in marin county. Pretty weird. So we went back to the hotel and I took a quick shower. Mikey started banging on the bathroom door as I was drying off yelling at me to hurry things up so I just ran out and around the hotel room completely naked with Jordan mikey and matt in the room. Good times. And then mikey came into the bathroom with a video camera after I went back in there and I flashed the camera. More good times.

On our way to the club.

From there we went to the after party which was really just some dorky club with a bunch of sceney boppers and kids from the show. In one room was just a normal club vibe but the other room was a dude spinning pop punk stuff. Kind of lame but whatever. When we got there we got a bunch of drink tickets from a dude who runs things but one of the bartenders refused to take the tickets because the tickets were two days old. So weber ended up cussing her out, calling her a stupid fucking bitch and he would get her fired. It was fucking great. I paced myself fairly well enough to stay awake all night, I only had a few beers. Eventually we left the club around 4 or 430. I went to hungry jack’s before going back up to the room. I wrote more stuff in the journal. By the time I ended up passing out it was about 530 but I only slept until about 6 because we had lobby call. By that time I was absolutely dead. I could barely stay awake and I was hating life. We were off to the airport to catch our plane to melbourne.

Completely dead after an all-night rage-athon.

Day 8 -

So for some bizarre reason I couldn’t manage to fall asleep on the plane. By the time we boarded everyone was dead but I was officially awake for 24 hours, not counting the half hour power nap I took. I was miserable. And to make things even better a few of us had to go to the club to help load in because it was some serious pain in the ass. Of course no one wanted to actually do it so we picked numbers and mine was one of the lucky ones to get chosen. Yay. The alley of the place was so gross and urine soaked. And the stairs from the alley down to the club were even worse. The load in wasn’t actually too bad though. By this time my body was pretty much just on auto pilot. I went back to the hotel room to find everybody passed out and a bunch of food wrappers and stuff everywhere. I was mad with jealousy. I went downstairs and just went to the café next door and had some decent chicken sandwich. Then I called alison and went upstairs and passed out. That nap was probably the best one I’ve ever taken. It was so much-needed.

The address to the hotel in Melbourne…we were in good hands.

Train depot in Melbourne.

A few hours later I was ready to go. We all went back to the club where we were greeted in our dressing room (which was huge and looked down on the club via big windows, pretty awesome) with tons of food, beer and water. It was heaven. And for probably the first time on the tour there was actually working wireless internet! We all just nerded out and drank and ate. It ruled. Our set that night was awesome. Junior and I agreed to turn the volume down on our heads that night and it totally worked out to our advantage because everyone agreed the sound that night was perfect. Obviously a lot of that had to do with the sound system being good but still it was great to finally have a really good sound. Things seemed like they couldn’t get any better until in the middle of silverstein’s set they played a lifetime cover and we were all into for about 30 seconds until joe crowd surfed over the barricade and security flipped out. Joe tried showing them his pass but they were for some reason just losing their minds. Silverstein stopped the song and all of syg ran into help which in turn made the security even more maniacal. They seriously looked like they were going to kill everyone. Imagine your quintessential british or Australian huge rugby player or soccer hooligan looking absolutely mean and terrifying and that’s what these guys looked like. They were like something straight out of a cartoon or movie. Weber had to jump and keep us separated from the guards because he knew if we actually threw down with them, which we obviously didn’t they would kill us. But then they even shoved weber into the wall for some reason. These dudes were serious dicks. The whole night they were just being too rough with kids. These guys were about 6’ 3” and 300 pounds and they were yanking kids like they were rag dolls. Totally retarded. But the fun didn’t stop there. After the show was over a few girls Jordan somehow knew were hanging around the merch table just talking and deciding on some last minute purchases when security just started almost pushing them out the door. So Jordan told them they needed to chill out and then the beast in them almost started to come out again. They threatened Jordan and said “shut your fucking mouth you stupid american wanker!” ridiculous. And then a bit later craig tried to just make peace with them and came up to one with his hand out to shake on it and a bunch just swarmed around him acting like they were going to beat him up. So stupid. Luckily though nothing serious happened. It was just a lot of tension.

Player and Richard, Silverstein’s merch guy, in Melbourne.

After the show we went to this incredible place called lord of the fries where they serve meatless burgers and great fries that you can get all these good sauces on, like thai peanut sauce, this sort of ranch stuff, bbq sauce and you can even get poutine! They were out of gravy though so I just got a mix and match of thai, ranch and some ketchup and it was so delicious. After that we adjourned to the hotel room with the rest of the beer we took from the our dressing room and called it a night.

Lord of the Fries Guys.

Day 9 -

I was barely able to make it up in the morning. It was 11 o clock and I just barely had it in me to get out of bed. We had lobby call at 12 because the show was a matinee on account of it being an under 18 show. But since the club was a five minute walk from the hotel I skipped on lobby call to take a much needed shower. While I was taking the shower the hose just popped out of the shower head out of nowhere. Lame. But I was just about done anyways. We played again at the same club. We got there and the owner informed us that one of the security guards got fired because after roughly escorting a drunk girl out of the club the night before he proceeded to spit on her. Plus I guess some of them got shit for the debacle with us. So we were pretty much confident that this time they would behave because no more of them wanted to lose their jobs. Before the show mikey junior and I went and found some really good Chinese place. I got this great noodle soup to go. It was so big I just had half of it before our set. I pretty much think that asian food in Australia is better than the US. Maybe it’s on account of it being closer to asia but I just know that I like everything I tried there more. During deez nuts’ set a few of us went on stage and sang the sing along part to their closer song “rep your hood”. it was pretty fun. Our set went really well again.

Boys of Summer Tour photo.

It was early after we were done, so mikey craig and I went to subway. Melbourne pretty much to me is like the san Francisco of Australia. Lots of culture and cool architecture and the weather seemed pretty similar, hot in the rest of the country but cool there. Definitely my favorite aussie city I had been to at that point. After subway we went back to the hotel where mikey and I tried doing laundry in the washer/dryer combo in our room. It was a fucking pain in the ass. The room came with a couple packets of detergent that were 2.50 each so I was like fuck that so I bought some detergent at the IGA store downstairs. I put some in and starred the machine (which was way too difficult to figure out how to use) and read the directions. However the directions said to use front load detergent only, the machine being front load and all. The detergent I put in was definitely normal detergent. Oops. It didn’t fuck the machine up though, but I don’t know if it could have done anymore damage because the machine was such a piece of shit. I set the machine to “rapid wash” but that didn’t stop the cycle from taking about an hour and a half. Ridiculous. Then the machine took in the end about 3 hours to dry our clothes. Four and a half hours to do one really small load of laundry…I hated that machine. Anyways, weber came by the room and a few of us went back to lord of the fries. This time I got poutine and it was delicious. By now I was totally full. Then everyone as well as a couple silvestein guys went to this club called bang where we partied the rest of the night. It was fucking awesome. Because weber of course knew the chick running the place, coupled with the fact we were scheduled to play there in a week we all got comped tons of drink tickets. It ruled so much. There were multiple rooms, one was a big club room, one a little dance room, a metal room that was playing tons of lame nu metal and then just a quieter bar room where I started the night out. A bunch of the amity affliction guys were there. Those dudes are just complete drunks. Hilarious. Matt junior and I did a bunch of dancing in the little room it was so much fun. I probably danced for an hour straight. Total work out. I was never out of drink tickets that night. They just kept coming. I got them from all sorts of people. It ruled. We all agreed it was the most the fun night of the tour. After bang matt junior and I walked back to the hotel. Junior and I grabs some slices of pizza on the way because we built up a good appetite from dancing. By the time we got back to the hotel though my feet were killing me. Blame vans. The slip ons I got free for being on the tour destroyed my feet. Even after switching back to my nb’s my feet still hurt a ton. Oh well.

Day 10 -

I woke up with a fairly decent hangover. Fortunately lobby call was at 11 so I was able to sleep a bit. I took a few ibuprofen to take the edge off my hangover. We piled in the van and made our way to the airport. We were all super hungry but the food selection at the airport was horrible. There was hungry jack’s and a few other really bad places. Joe and I abstained but mikey got hungry jack’s that looked horrible and matt got this fluorescent green fettucini with this really runny marina sauce that was so unbelievably bad. It was disgraceful. Only junior came out on top with a decent looking English breakfast. We arrived in Adelaide after a short and uneventful flight. We were all pretty much starving after having either not eaten or eaten only garbage so Bronwyn took us to the asian area. Mikey and I had this beef noodle soup at some noodle place that was totally delicious. One of the best soups I’ve ever had. Only six and a half bucks too. Like I said before asian food in Australia is so kick ass. After food we went to our hotel. It was a nice little place with multiple buildings all surrounding a nice little courtyard.

Hotel in Adelaide.

the room matt mikey Jordan and I were in wasn’t quite ready to we kicked in the other guys’ room for a bit, then went and napped a bit when it finally was done. I also able to clean the rest of my dirty clothes in a washer and dryer that both worked just fine, thank god. Shortly after we adjourned to the show. We only stayed for about 5 minutes before weber took us to a vegetarian Chinese place. Despite the fact that like I said asian food in Australia is really good I was starting to get a bit tired of it. I probably should have stuck with my intuition because this place was kind of lame. I got some chicken satay that was really good but my salt and pepper tofu was super lackluster. I tried some of matt, junior and mikey’s dishes and their’s were decent enough. I just happened to choose the wrong dish. It also didn’t help that our dishes took about an hour to come out. I had to get mine to go because we had to get back to the club. During Deez Nuts’ set tons of people got on the stage to sing rep your hood. It was fun. Our set went well again. Billy from silverstein got on stage again to sing to be continued with us and ended up jumping on Jordan during a sing along, sending both of them and a few kids tumbling to the floor. It was pretty hilarious. Silverstein played some weird set this time, doing more different songs. They played lifetime this time and it was great. But of course joe almost got in trouble again with security for coming onto the stage after the song. Security didn’t know he was in a band so they got in his face for a second.

Reppin our hood with Deez Nuts and me aka Rocky Balboa aka Towely.

The rest of the night before we left the club we just drank a lot, shot the shit. Good times. The girl who was friends with weber and Bronwyn who was going to tattoo us showed up for a minute and we all talked with her quickly about what we wanted. After we left the club a bunch of us went to the casino. A few of the dn guys were there. Shane from silverstein ended up coming out on top with a few hundred. Mikey made some money. I played 20 bucks and lost it in a second at blackjack so I was like fuck that and didn’t bother losing anymore of my money. Junior was saying ridiculous shit. We were out until about 4 in the morning. When I got back to the hotel I passed out immediately.

Day 11 -

Last night was the last night of the boys of summer tour, so today was just an off day. We stopped and got some food around 1 before going to malika ‘s tattoo shop. It was in a total touristy beach area with expensive shops and food. But it was a nice area. The weather was perfect. Malika had a couple drawings for our tattoos and they were perfect. The one I got was a little koala head with a thought bubble, and in the thought bubble was a lime because we had such a hard time getting limes here. A few other people got an op ivy skankin koala. And mikey’s was a fat koala with a total beer belly. Even matt got one! His first tattoo! We were all in there watching him for that. He made the best faces while getting it, it hurt him so bad he said. Malika was really fast. She did mine in almost half an hour. It ruled.

Set Your Goals gets tattooed.

I pretty much just walked around while everybody got their’s. mikey junior craig and I stopped at some fish and chips place across the street for food. It was really expensive and we ordered our’s to go. Once we got it we couldn’t really decide where to eat it so we just decided to eat at the place, but the people working there wouldn’t let us. They said the takeaway menu is totally different and it costs more to dine in. I guess the second part makes sense what with having to clean dishes and all, but they were total assholes about it. It really pissed us off. We ate a picnic table near the beach. Luckily the food was good. We told malika about it and she told us how tons of people have complained about the people at that restaurant being dicks. After that I had some drink from Australia’s equivalent of jamba juice, called boost. It was good but reading the menu I saw that they assigned boosts for each drink, as opposed to jamba juice’s where you can get any boost with any drink. Still, mine was good. After everyone was done with their tattoos we went back to the hotel. I took a nap. I woke up around 9:45 and we walked around trying to find some place to eat but just about everywhere was closed. Even though Adelaide is nice it’s a quiet, family friendly city so everything dies really early. A few of us ended up going to a total bro bar for a bit. Then weber took us downtown. A few went to the casino again while matt weber and I got food. I got a 12” margherita pizza for 4.50 that was actually really good. I scarfed it all down, it was delicious. After that matt and I walked to the casino. I just watched mikey and junior play some blackjack. They were doing well against a trainee dealer but then the casino got wise and sent in a real dealer who ended up taking back a lot of their money. He was a pretty funny dude too. After that we made the half hour walk back to the hotel. My feet felt like they were going to fall off. Got back to the hotel and crashed out.

In retrospect, Adelaide seems the most like northern California out of all the Australian cities we visited. The little parks near downtown gave it a really family-friendly vibe, like marin county. Even the surrounding hills really reminded me of west marin or out east like contra costa county. I guess the only thing not like nor cal was the beach but that’s at least similar to so cal.

Day 12 -

Matt flaunts his obsession with dicks before we go to the airport in Adelaide.

We met up at the van around 11 and took off for the airport. After a bit of a clusterfuck we managed to get everything on the plane and get to our boarding call in time. I think on the flight we managed to piss everyone else around us off by being loud, laughing and just saying really bizarre things. At this point it was quite evident we were losing our minds. They gave us this really weird bean and ham salad to eat. I had mikey’s because he wouldn’t touch it. In Sydney we collected our bags with no problems and caught a really expensive taxi ride to the hostel we were staying in. the hostel was pretty cool, we all just shared one room with a bunch of bunk beds.

Set Your Goals at Billabong Gardens.

After just kicking it in the room for a bit we all went to the street that Bronwyn had taken us to a few days before.

King St. in Newtown, Sydney.

I found thaitanic again so joe and I ate there. It was even better this time. I had a coconut milk soup with beef and veggies in it that was so good. Joe’s dish was good too. After that we just walked up the street a bit but there wasn’t much to check out so we found a beer store, grabbed a couple bottles of VB and went back to the hostel. Everyone else eventually found their way back and we just kicked it doing not much at all until everyone passed out.

Matt in the hostel in Sydney.

Day 13 -

I can’t remember what time I woke up at but it was probably around 10 when the housekeeping guy came into to exchange our towels. Eventually a few hours later everyone else was up and we went up to king st. and went to burgerlicious, a pretty decent burger place. I made a couple phone calls then went back to the room. I wanted to go to Sydney harbor and check out the opera house and whatever else just to be a tourist and some other people were down to but we pretty much just never got around to it. Instead we stayed inside the hostel room which was way too hot and we’re just lazy. People did a bit of recording but that was about all that happened. Later on joe, matt, mikey and I went to thai tanic again.

Thaitanic!

Craig, Jordan and junior weren’t in the room when we got back; it turns out they went to the Sydney aquarium. I was a bit bummed I missed out but I figured tomorrow in the morning I’d just get up early and go by myself to the harbor.

No one is safe from the SYG sleeping pictures…not even me.

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 12:51:06 GMT

japan is awesome! cheap sushi and beer vending machines. so good!

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 00:16:27 GMT

i'm in australia! so far it's been awesome. really warm. we've played two shows so far... the first was great the second so so. but we're all having a great time so far. getting internet access here is liking trying to find a unicorn...it's the most elusive thing ever. i think internet in australia is mostly just a myth. i brought my laptop but haven't even been able to get (free) wifi on it anywhere. i'm at a cheap internet cafe right now. probably the cheapest thing here...everything is expensive as shit. no matter though i'm having a great time so far. i'm keeping a tour journal in my laptop though so i'll be posting that at some point to bore you all to death with it.

that's all for now. later!

ps we get to hang out with koalas later!

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 19:04:48 GMT

tonite is the night! leaving for australia and japan! sooooo excited!

an update

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 17:21:49 GMT

quick catch up on all things dan....

work has generally sucked lately because there's been hardly any orders coming in. in the last week we got a few but other than that it's been bare. yikes.

but on the plus side of things i've been spending lots of time with alison, who is amazing and who i love very much. *boop*

aaaaaaaaaand...i get to go to japan and australia in january! for free! set your goals asked me to fill in on guitar and there was no way i could pass up the opportunity. i'm so excited. especially because lately i've been really wanting to travel but i haven't really had the means to do so. plus japan has been high on my list of places to go to so everything is working out good.

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 02:12:46 GMT

halloween ruled! i'm really stoked on how my costume turned out, especially because i put alot of work into it. the show we played in sac on friday was rad, the alameda one eh not so much. and alison's black dahlia costume was awesome too.

i got a mangina!

don't bother izzy he's eating

don't bother me i'm eating the best gumbo ever

the lovely alison about to pumpkin bowl

howdily doodily neighborinos!

jennica about to pumpkin bowl

a fishy bastard and a dead hooker

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 16:49:08 GMT

so tattoo removal....not as completely horrible as i thought it would be but still really sucks nonetheless. it feels similar to getting a tattoo in the sense that it feels like a needle going into your skin, but unlike a tattoo it feels like it's going way deeper and it's less frequent, more like once or twice a second. plus it smells like burnt flesh afterwards. gross. fortunately the nurse injected me with some lydocaine too or else it would've been really unbearable.

alison introduced me to this torta shop in the mission yesterday called la torta gorda which is one of my new favorite spots now. i had a cuban torta which had ham, turkey, hot dog and this stuff called pierna which is like spiced pulled pork. it was fucking amazing. i've been telling everyone i know about it because it rules so hard. and their horchata was fresh made to order so it was all creamy and thick. the tortas were huge! i still have a leftover half i'm going to eat pretty soon here.

sorry but...

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 19:38:43 GMT

most manly flyer ever

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 20:26:15 GMT

saturday! because you all want to come to sacramento soooo badly:

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 19:39:58 GMT

so i went to palo alto yesterday to talk to a skin institute about getting some laser removal done on one of my tattoos. they were pretty cool there, and the quote they gave isn't too bad...275 per session to work on my stupid mayan tattoo on my upper right arm. hopefully i won't have to have more than 3 sessions to fade it enough to cover it up. and hopefully i don't need to do any laser work on the jib tattoo........yes that's right. no more jack in the box tattoo folks. sucks i know but i just picked the wrong place to put it. maybe i'll get some jack head tattoo somewhere else some day. i just want to get my right arm sleeved out already. fuuuuck.

in other news...second chances rule. bad feelings go out, good ones come in. yesssssss.

and in yet other news i'm feeling kind of sick. and it's not even winter yet.

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 04:25:46 GMT

dan makes bad decisions

TONITE!

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 20:27:53 GMT

if you're around then come hang out!

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 00:43:02 GMT

i've already begun to get into making my halloween costume...oh man it's going to rule! i'm so glad i'm giving myself tons of time this year. it will be epic.

I'M OLD GREGGGGGGGGGGGGG

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 22:35:37 GMT

ugh...goddamn you heartbreak get out of my head and let me get on with my life. i hate constantly thinking about hurtful things...it just drains the life out of me.

i know someday i'll find the happiness and inner peace i want in my life...i just know it won't happen as soon as i want it to.

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 01:48:55 GMT

6 flags marine world/discovery kingdom/whatever the fuck it's called now FTW!

underwater tigers!

gay sharks!

r. kelly stingray dude!

not to mention teej and chon jon in the best roller coaster picture taken EVER.

thanks heather and teej for inviting me!

Fri, 07 Sep 2007 15:26:08 GMT

i have a free roundtrip flight to anywhere with southwest and i don't know where to go! help!

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 05:06:38 GMT

SEPTEMBER 20TH!!!

come out and have a good time!

(not like you got any other shit going on on a thursday night.)

Sun, 02 Sep 2007 05:32:26 GMT

having someone get your hopes up so high only to have them pull the rug completely out from under you is such a great feeling.

someone stop my world from spinning...i'd like to get off now.

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:01:00 GMT

back in cali....holler at a heeb.

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 15:42:38 GMT

soooooooooooo my flight this morning got cancelled. weather is way fucked up in chicago. buuuuut i got myself onto a flight this afternoon. cuz i rule. so now i'm kicking it til then with nothing to do.

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 06:04:43 GMT

flying to chicago in the morning.....where apparently the weather is nightmarish. horizontal rain and shit. oh well supposedly it's going to clear up for the weekend. i'll be back on monday....plenty of chillin to be done.

in other news things have been...discussed that are giving me a great outlook on the future. good things come to those who wait.

left arm is finished. yay!

Sun, 19 Aug 2007 21:24:40 GMT