* 10.11.04 *

So, I guess I let a lot of time go by since I last updated this thing From Claremont, California, after wild partying dancing around with the Callacis and their family, we drove to Phoenix, Arizona... The drive is incredible, and on the way, we pass by the Joshua Tree park... Confession: I had to stop by, because of the U2 album... I shouldn't say that I guess, especially because Vertigo (the newest U2 disaster), is one of the worst songs I've ever heard on the radio ever, but still, I like the Joshua Tree album, and it reminded me of my early childhood to go there... So, in the middle of the Californian desert, Kimya takes a Bono picture of me, right before we totally freak out because of a Giant Tarantula running towards us... Then we get to Phoenix, in this sort of Art Gallery/Warehouse. All the kids look like they've inspired Dan Clowes' Ghost World. They're all pretty cool though. Right around nine, at some band is playing some punk songs, they go total bezerk, and start smashing TVs all over the place, then the band starts making out on stage and pouring whipcream in their underpants. I have to go on after the mess is cleaned up, but suddenly they listen to me, it's really nice... After the show, a really really scary Police officer steps into the venue, and after showing me how his weapons work, he buys Ya Ya, and I paranoidly think he's looking for evidence of something in it, especially with all the stars oif David on the artwork... Kimya plays an awesome set, and Emily, whose birthday it is, and who set up the show knows every fucking song by heart, it is amazing, and I think Kimya is probably really moved by that... We then stay at her lovely place. The next day Kimya and Emily want to go to the "State Fair", before we head to Tucson, with some of Kimya's friends. I'm not going, first because for some reason, I feel uncomfortable hanging out with Kimya's fans and that they would probably enjoy the day better asking her every question about why and when and how she said nthis and that, and then and mostly, because I need to do Laundry. After the Fair, Kimya picks me up downtown, and we drive to Tucson. How amazing can a lanscape be, I wonder... Driving through Arizona is a bit like seeing imaginary images of Planet Mars for real, except that you can breathe, staring at the Red Rock mountains or whatever they call them. We Pick Brian Piltin for driving, and I'm almost crying thinking that such a GREAT artist is not famous right now. Tucson seems like a fairly cool city, tons of bars and stuff. The place we play at is awesome, sort of a cave or something, with the echo and everything, and so I won't need a PA tonight (I haven't used one in a while). When we get there, they're playing the album that we recorded for Julie, and first I remember that she called me from that place something like two weeks ago, and then I miss her a little... The show is pretty cool. The drive the next day is crazy, so we live at 6:30, heading to Odessa, TX, birthplace of Georges W Bush. It seems like everybody is freaking out about us going there, like, you guys are gonna get killed or something, the Brown and the Jew... Bullshit, the nicest people. The venue is called HIPSTERS, what could be wrong with that... Everybody there is awesome, the kids who come for the show too, and the first band playing is totally amazing, playing some sort of acoustic Death Metal, with very clever and catchy lines... We stay at the venue, I love that shit, and then, we have to go to Denton, TX. Don't be fooled, Texas is so huge, that the drive is pretty long, even though we're not even driving across Texas. On the way I become a total fan of the friend of Kimyas, Ben Qweller, I love the album she plays for me, I think it's just great, and especially his song about his appartment in NYC... We get to Denton, home of Satan's Fingers, and two kids know I played in a band named after that song, pretty funny... The show is sort of cool, though I have to say, since after Phoenix, I got to that point on the tour (as it sometimes happen), when I don't really know what I'm there for, and miss New York, and Paris. Even though I KNOW it always happen to me, and always on the tenth day, there's no way I can avoid feeling a little depressed. It also seems to me on that day, that the kind of shows Kimya has got to get on that tour, are really Just For Fans shows, as it's basically promoted through her mailing list, which suddenly appears a little creepy to me, on that day again. Especially, I start noticing that the audience is really very young in general, and sort of of the same type of Kids everywhere, and it makes me feel weird. Then I get pissed off a little because she's not nice to me at some point on stage, and I end up being totally grumpy. I just don't realize that it's my regular Tenth day syndroma, and that two days after that I won't even remember all those things that made me freak out. From Denton, we go to Austin, Texas, where I had the best time when we played there a few years ago, and stayed with Jeff (Lewis) when he used to live in Austin. Kimya's friend, Graham, set up a house show for us. It's a little bit frustrating in a way, because I know that a lot of people could have come to a well promoted show there, and we end up playing in Graham's appartment for a handful of devoted Kimya fans. But it turns out to be really cool because Graham is really nice and a good person, that his mother sent him some awesome Peanut Butter Cookies. But then I get tons of phone calls from everywhere telling me that the Red Sox just won the world series, first time in 86 years, it's pretty cool, and I think about my brother LaBolduc, who used to go to summer camps with the Sox, and then there's a lunar Eclipse, and that's pretty nice. We really have a nice time with Graham and his room mate, and in the morning we get breakfust somewhere Downtown, and then I go to check out what remains of Daniel Johnston's mural for this record Store Sound Exchange. It's really sad that because the record store was turned into a Burrito Chain Store place, they had the right to cut through the mural, I think. Well, after Austin, we play in Houston, Texas, in this venue named SUPER HAPPY FUN LAND. It's our best show in Texas I think, the venue is awesome, the people who run it too, and the kid who opens for us, Brad, is a really cool musician, and he plays with a great drummer, who reminds me of the Butthole Surfers, who are from Texas too. Super Happy Fun Land totally gets me back in the tour, and reminds me of how much I love playing shows, how much I love traveling around, and how much I think Kimya's songs are wonderful, and what a good friend she is, and how cool it is to be touring together. After Super Happy Fun Land, NEW ORLEANS. It's getting late, and I should probably be sleeping since a bunch of hours ago, but I just want to write about New Orleans. Jeff's friends, Grey and Patsy set up the show, they just moved there. The drive had already been fucking amazing, but then, when we get to Grey and Patsy's neighborhood, I hadn't felt that since the first time I walked in Brooklyn. It's is merely unbelievably awesome. Grey and Patsy's neighborhood is a bit like a vision of Greenpoint in a few hundred years, when the climate will be totally fucked up, and the Jungle will pierce through the sidewalk, Beautiful. People smile at me in the streets, say Hi, you can actually Walk to do stuff (forget that in Texas). I don't know, I'm totally blown away by the city. It gets me a little bit too excited, and then I get self-comscious and don't want to annoy Kimya, Grey and Patsy, with my comments on every little thing I see and that amazes me, but inside I'm boiling. I get a phone call from Will Oldham who is in New Orleans for a wedding, cool coincidence. He still has time to come to the show before, and after we're done playing (it's cheezy but I have to sing New Orleans legend Lee Dorsey's Ya Ya) because we're kicked out of the room by some Women' Poetry Club, right when Grey was about to sing, we say we'll meet again later that night after his Ceremony practice. I've only hung out with him a few times, but I like him and he's really surprising, I have to say. Grey and Patsy's son, Julian, who is probably a genius, who recites poetry and wants to learn Ukulele at the age of three is dressed as Spiderman, it is funny. When they find a baby sitter, they take us to the French Quarter of New Orleans. Beautiful architecture, but really annoying drunk and loud crowd down there, so we step out of Bourbon streets and such, and we have a walk by the Mississippi River. I had never met Grey and Patsy before, but I'm pretty damn happy to talk with them walking by the water, I think especially since they are the first people who are not fans that I meet since when we got in Texas, so it feels good to talk about stuff and have fun. We all end up meeting Will to walk and have "a" drink in some total random bar, getting there by the weirdest route through the French Quarter, I meet a cool girl there who I can't remember the name of but believe in the Ghosts of Mountains in New Mexico and just played with Julie last month, or something, if I remember, and for some reason, not only the Bar Tender (who I think plays in some indie rock band I know, but I'm not sure) doesn't let us pay, but he then buys my CD, though I don't have any with me there, and I'm sure he has no idea what sort of songs I play, but he insists and so I take the money, I'll just have to remember to not lose the address and to send him a copy of Ya Ya before too long. Will gets me into a couple of crazy conversations about voodoo sort of cannibalism applied to vegetarianism with a hint of buddhism, and meanwhile the Voice of Bono is a shrieking pain in my ears through the superloud Bar's Stereo, and I think: Vertigo really has no class, how could he still the title of one of the best movies ever to sing that crap? I still confess, I like U2 sometimes, it's not blind hate, or blind fear of evangelism. We end up getting back to Grey and Patsy's place pretty late, or very late I should say. The next day doesn't temper my excitment for New Orleans in Louisiana. There's pictures of the Neville Brothers in the stores, people just seem to be super welcoming. Grey makes me listen to Johnny Marr's new band, apparently he sings in it, unheard of, we keep having a good time until we have to leave to drive to Mobile, Alabama. I wish I could do something to thank Grey and Patsy, because we had the best time thanx to them, but instead of us thanking them some way or the other, they give us necklaces as goodbye presents, I hope I'll see them again sometime. We don't get early enough in Mobile, Alabama to see anything of the city, apart from a million of signs flashing in the night, coming from what seems to be a continuous bunch of malls. The show is at a regular venue, where they usually have indie rock shows, and the show goes fine I think, although I'm really tired. Apparently the promoter who was suppose to play before our two sets freakes out or something, and hides in his car, maybe he's on a bad trip of acid or something like that, but no one tells us, so we end up starting really late. After the show though, it's a bit of a nightmare as we are supposed to stay (said the promoter who's at the moment freaking out, still, in his car) at this girl's place, but it turns out that she's only seventeen, lives with her dad who is totally mad at her because she brought us to his place, and then she starts having some sort of party with some totally under age kids who seem totally high. I'm a bit scared of the awkwardness of us being there, and Kimya and I end up not really sleeping and leaving the place as soon as the sun comes up again. I don't know, sometimes, you feel sonething weird going on, and especially because the kids were really young, we felt really uncomfortable, and just had to leave the place, where we never chose to go to in the first place. We drive shouting along to Ben Qweller again, thank you Kimya for playing that record for me, I love it

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