It occurred to me that I’ve never not had a place to live. Sorry to employ the double negative, but I do not, in fact, currently have a place to live. I started thinking about it and realized that most people never have this problem, if it is a problem. It begs an entirely new approach to living.
Thanks to my cousin Wayne for letting us rest briefly at his apartment. We were pretty scraggly from the show last night in Hunter, KS Veras was the place. I know because it was spray painted on the front of the building.
We drove around the entire town. Then we had to do it several more times because we had more than 5 minutes to kill before the show.
We literally woke up this morning and left the house we stayed at and wondered two things:
1. Which way is north? 2. Ok, so what do we do about it?
Sitting here swapping weed stories with my buddies…
Swapping is rather bad nomenclature, being as I don’t have any to swap…
“Ninja shit…going between trees…those bushes that have pine needles on them…he passed by and I just took off for the car…pretending like I was looking for a dog…that’s the day I swore off drugs…and I didn’t…”
This listening stuff is fun….
“The cop came up and looked in the car…he had to have know that we were fucked up…looking at the cop normally, but not looking at the cop normally…begging God…yeah, you can stay in our hotel room…he would get the joint and he would just hold it. We sold him some acid and he took it right then and there. We all went to sleep. One of my friends woke up and he was standing over him like this….”
Notice the quotes. I love listening to stories like this, both enjoying their humor but thanking the aforementioned God that I don’t have any like this to tell…
I tell stories about cutting wheat and playing bars and listening to stories other people tell.
Is my life boring? Not to me. Crazy stuff is what I’m all about.
I’m playing behind Burgess before McClure on Sunday. Perhaps the climax of my musical career Sometimes I wonder why I’m still here. I think I’m trying to start a panic.
I think I’m going to write some new songs and put them on the album I’m going to start working on when I write some new songs.
I need a new video card and a new tie.
One more quote… “You gotta have a babysitter…I wouldn’t leave that leaf imprint in the concrete…”
I was reading my last log entry and realized I started every other sentence with “now” Sorry
Now, I was peer-pressured into going to the Ragweed show. Liz and Tara made me go
I wore my Buster’s hat The one in the picture from a few days ago One of the Pratt crew came up and asked me when I was playing Buster’s next I gave him my hat Sorry, Trevor, it was just too hideous
I’m looking forward to this little five day mini-vacation from music Give me time to catch up on my Star Trek
I copied this from my FTP program. Do you notice any curious messages?
150-Accepted data connection 150 The computer is your friend. Trust the computer 3278 bytes received successfully. (3.20 KB/s) (00:00:01). 226-File successfully transferred
I guess they found a shell or two containing Sarin and mustard gas. Well shit. I guess they found their weapons of mass destruction. I’d better vote for Bush in November.
I headed out for Stillwater on Tuesday night. Try getting around 10 carney vehicles doing 50 in a 65 in the rain and tell me you’re not thinking “bad clowns, bad clowns”.
The lady at the Phillips 66 in Tonkawa offered me a funnel for the quart of oil I purchased. I thought about getting smart and telling her what I would do with the funnel which involved duct tape and a reclamation scheme for the oil as it leaked out of and all over my engine, but I decided that courtesy demanded that I shut up, smile, and say, “No thank you”.
We played the [Copper] Penny and as frustrated as I was by the end of the night, when I heard Roger Clyne’s “Green and Dumb” on the jukebox after the show, I realized the four hour drive was all worth while.
Sleeping in at Wally’s immaculate mansion, I was actually still there when Trevor awoke. We decided to go eat. He took me to this over-the-top Mexican restaurant. Now, I’m not a big fan of Mexican food to begin with, mostly because I never know what I’m ordering. This place looked like it was right out of Mexico…or, rather, what I imagine Mexico looks like from the movies.
Anyway, I left from the place after glancing at Trevor’s big book of maps, knowing that there had to be a faster way than I35. Whether this faster way exists, however, has yet to be confirmed. I found myself driving around this lake, through some park, looking at some scary looking white expanse in the distance. From the signs, I determined that it was some kind of salt plain, conveniently left off of the out-of-state portion of my Kansas map so that they could list all of the towns in Kansas. Good plan, I though, especially for someone lost in Northern Oklahoma. I finally made it across the state line and found myself south of Hazelton. As I walked in to the OK Coop in Hazelton, I found Vernon Eck there looking at me like I was the last person he expected to see on a Wednesday at 4:00pm. I hadn’t seen him in about a year and, quite frankly, hadn’t expected to see him at 4:00pm on a Wednesday afternoon. I bought some gas and continued to Sharon.
Now, the whole reason I went out of route to Sharon was because I had forgotten to take a change of clothes with me to Stillwater and Jim and I were slated to play at Martini’s in Salina that night. After finding out that our washing machine was broken and my green pearl snap shirt that I left home for just such an occasion was still dirty from the last such occasion, I went to my closet and was immediately glad I did. While I swore long ago never to wear my Emotional Feedback shirt again, I decided that my first and last opportunity in quite some time to sit in the center seat justified my wearing of the garment.
After we played one hell of a good show in Salina, I got to thinking. Now, I’m the last person in the world who could ever be accused of being superstitious. The night’s success, however, tempted me to associate it with the wearing of the shirt. Whenever I think about being in a band, the first thing I think of is Emotional Feedback. This was nothing more than a garage band I was in in High School, and while I’ve been in several much more professional bands since then, they were all lacking an important element. With EF, we were friends who also played music together. I’m certainly not saying that Pavement Ends and Pearl Grey were not my friends, but the friendships grew from the band association. With [Emotional] Feedback, the music grew from the friendship. I guess this rather lengthy and seemingly irrelevant log entry goes out to my former band mates.
Rob Spectre is currently in Rhode Island being, as always, proudly geek. Michael Scott is in Oklahoma City, last I heard. Mason Powell is in Lawrence and Joscelyn Farrar is in New York. Curiously enough, Joscelyn and Mason are both getting married on June 5th of this year, though, of course, not to each other. I miss them all and wish for them the best.
I wish I had the energy to go see [Cross Canadian] Ragweed tonight at LongShotz.
Here we go again Another road trip Salina from Manhattan by way of Stillwater
Friday at JC’s was good, I thought Trevor seemed to believe otherwise
Buster’s was fun but weird The owner’s daughter turned 19 A fact of which she kept reminding us She decreased the frequency of the reminders when I explained that Trevor was in kindergarten when she was born We went to after hours Burgess and I about hit a fence, not because I was drunk, but because I was laughing so hard I missed the turn and ended up in the middle of a pasture before I could get the Mazda shut down.
Fun with signs 2004 I don’t want to hear anything about my Neil Diamond shirt or my ugly hat I can smile goofier, or more goofy, than anyone you’ve ever known That sign will say home of Aaron Traffas very soon…
I just got back from a rather sudden trip to Sharon. One of my and my family’s closest friends passed away a couple days ago. Very seldom do I grieve for a non-family member’s death. This is certainly one of the exceptions.
I have seven hours logged on the road today with two more to go. It looks like Saline and Dickinson counties are in a tornado watch tonight. I have to drive through both of them to Salina tonight. I guess I’m leaving the topper on my pickup. I wish I was running on more sleep, but I suppose caffeine is an OK substitute.
Boy, we had a hell of a show on Saturday night. We took the most firepower I’ve ever used at a show It payed off We had a solid sound for a quarter-mile You could probably hear it much farther away than that It was certainly the fullest sound I’ve heard outside of a big bar venue
Thanks to Mike and Jim for a spectacular performance
I hope Trevor’s alive
I got to do some farm work on Sunday The most liberating experience in recent memory A day without Purple Wave or music Doesn’t happen very often I fixed some fence, fixed a chisel, mowed some grass…with a bush hog
The music does, however, keep getting better and better We’re in Salina on Wednesday at Martini’s We’re back in Salina on Friday at JC’s Then we head to Sun City for the biggest, baddest Buster’s show that town has ever seen If you belong to the cult that’s trying to find a religous reason to shut the place down, this’ll be your opportunity.
Getting ready to jet for Sharon Playing out at the big Larson Trail Ride tonight Jimmy B. and Michael Kisner are coming down Jimmy’s going to bang around and Mike’s going to complain about all the songs we play with a capo Just like old times
Last night we played at Bobby T’s Opened for Voodoo Kitchin Great band with an SRV guitarist, cool bassist, and the prettiest drummer I’ve ever seen
Thanks, Jason, for “forgetting” to write down all the white Russians that T-Bob and I had.
Wednesday at Martini’s saw us bullshitting with Jamie from the Batchelorette after the show He just finished practicing basketball I found out that Salina had a semi-pro basketball team, but that’s about all I found out.
It’s 10:05am and I’ve already fixed a guitar and watched an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine I’d complain about not having a social life, but we were out until 3:30am last night
I guess it wasn’t that much that I had to say. I guess I forgot everything. You’ll hear from me.
