Birth Control.

 

Things have been happening. Jay wrote a really funny post about Spokane and the journey there. It was a trip, to say the least. Anyway, Jay's post is really funny and I will not even try to do better; so read Jay's.

 

Yellowstone. We camped at a KOA campground Monday night, which my mother afterwards told me is the STD capital of the world; this is funny only in that I thought the U of A was. Either way, I don't think any of us celibates really have anything to worry about. Speaking of celibacy…

 

I have been reading a lot about the renewed fight between comprehensive and abstinence-only sex-education programs; I have a better idea. Follow around, on a family vacation to Disneyland, any family of two or more kids + Mom + Dad. Allow me to explain.

 

The father, and perhaps, increasingly in modernity, the mother as well, has/have worked for 11 months and 2 weeks, statistically at jobs they loathe, just to take the lil' tykes on the vacation of their dreams. This 11 months and 2 weeks of miserable work would be summarized in the first 5 minutes of the sex-ed video.

 

From the moment the family gets in the car to drive from Nowhere, USA, to Somewhere, CA, the whole thing just flies off the handle. Lil' tyke 1 is punching #2, dad is angry at #2 for crying, mom at #1 for hitting, and mom at dad for a whole slew of other reasons, many from when they were still dating some years ago.

 

Scene three, arrival at Disneyland, is just a montage of credit card swipes, possibly even sponsored by VISA, "it's everywhere you could possibly imagine spending money, including the churro stand." After $75 worth of food made exclusively from sugar, the tykes get mad at dad because he won't by them personalized Mickey ears. They go crying to mom, talking about how much they hate dad, and mom more or less agrees with them. The three go off and leave dad bewildered by the churro stand.

 

At this point, a giggling Donald Duck approaches and says, "Hey Dad! Are you enjoying your vacation?" I would never have kids, and probably never have sex had I seen that in middle school.

 

Funny Things About Yellowstone:

1. Facial Hair – Are we familiar with the handlebar mustache? This KOA could have written the textbook on freaky facial hair. I saw a man with a beard on top of a beard. It was terrifying and beautiful at the same time.

2. Wi-Fi and Cell Towers – I love the great outdoors, especially when sitting on top of the RV, cool bear in hand, watching YouTube videos. Luckily, none of the slice of America we heard yapping on their cell phones had nauseating accents. That would have been too much…

3. The Recreational Vehicle. The RV is interesting for two reasons.

            a: Phonetics: There is a tendency to write an RV, not a RV. An Artist. An RV. Say it out loud for a while.

            b. Some RVs cost as much as $200,000. $200,000 = 10 17-inch MacBook Pros ($30,000), 2 cases Johnny Walker Blue Label ($10,000), 2 Round-Trip tickets to Argentina ($8,000), 6 Months living expenses in Argentina ($12,000),  Personal Paella Catered by Gerard Nevesky ($10,000),  a large house in Dubois, Wyoming ($30,000), Mayorship of Dubois ($10,000), a dead black-market Panda bear ($80,000),  one terrible roulette wager on Black ($10,000).

 

For $200,000, the RV had better wake me up with a kiss and breakfast every morning.

 

4. Hanging out on my computer in the KOA, I met Noah, 18 from Atlanta. Cool kid. Starting school in Macon, GA this semester. We then met two girls, age 14, who asked to us my computer to check their Myspace pages. I agreed, thus beginning the confirmation of every fear I hold for the present generation. I used the word 'impressive,' and they told me I was "real smart." I had to keep reminding myself I was nine years older, but really, the gears just weren't clicking. As they read aloud the incredible amount of disturbing messages they receive from Myspace men, I tried to retain faith in humanity. It was hard. But Noah was cool, as Noahs tend to be.

 

5. The Ho-Hum motel, located in West Yellowstone, MT, is not a nice place to stay, but the name is right.

 

6. I have a bit of an emergence. Every time I close my cell phone, it turns off. I'm not asking for an iPhone, rather whatever exceptional phone you had before buying the iPhone. Anybody?

 

xoxo

  

Working for the Weekend.

Sorry for the lateness of this, but it's been a strange trip. After a long week of playing catch-up on my video editing duties, I was ready to let loose. And that is pretty much what happened.

Friday

The day started early with the four of us waking up at 6:30 AM. We were showered and out the door by 7:30 and parked outside of the KOMO TV station in Downtown Seattle by 9:00. The station was directly across the street from the Seattle Space Needle. Our location was no coincidence however. We were waiting for the producer of a show called N.W.A., an acronym which any rap fan would find amusing, especially when the target audience is women ages 35 - 163. The camera man for N.W.A. (Northwest afternoon) knocked on our R.V. door around 10:30 and the four of us found ourselves onset and being interviewed by hosts Natasha and Kent around 11:00 AM. The interview was almost as much fun as it was terrifying, but it was harmless and seemingly over before it began. We spent the rest of the mid-day outside of the TV studio looking for people on the street to ask them questions about their jobs. It was a nice, healthy switch from the typical scripted question and answer format that we have become accustomed to. I'm hoping that street interviews like these will become an increasingly large part of our project. We met a lot of people and ate lunch at a Greek restaurant called "The Grecian Corner". After lunch we decided to head down to Pike's Fish Market. Zach and I had been looking forward to catching some fish for about a week. On our way, we decided to stop off for a drink at Pike's Brewery, a local micro-brewery paces away from our goal. Gotta have a drink first right? We interviewed the owner who was nice enough to take us on a tour of the facility. No free beer though. Worth a shot. From there Zach and I continued our mission bringing with us a new dreamer, Noah. As has become the case, the Captain gave his 15 second pitch, and Noah, Zach and I found ourselves behind the counter practicing our fish catching. The key is to hold your hands out in front of you and go with the momentum of the fish, placing one hand behind the fish's dead head and one underneath the end of the body close to the tail. The same principles you would follow if you were trying to catch a sleeping baby, except for the fact that baby's usually aren't slimy in consistency and don't have tails. Never mind. Catch a fish and get back to me. Once our goal was "overdelivered"*(I'll explain later), I found myself having a weird deja vu-like feeling. Something told me that I was going to run into some one that I knew, even though I had never been to Seattle and knew of no one that was living there at the time. Normally I'd keep these thoughts to myself, but given that everyday of this trip has brought about an even more unusual experience that the last, i decided to say something about it. "I feel like I'm gonna run into somebody I know out here. I just have a feeling." The guys probably thought I was losing it. A few street musicians and a magician's act later I found myself following my colleagues down a narrow walkway cluttered with merchants, vendors and washed-up musicians. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw an extremely large hand pointing in my direction. I turned and saw that the monstrous hand was connected to the equally impressive arm of Zach Verdin, a kid that I grew up with playing little league baseball with. I've known Zach since we were 6 and 7 years old. It was crazy. Not only that I had called our meeting, but that it was with him of all people. It was nuts. Nothing like that has ever happened to me. Probably never will again. Zach invited us up for a couple of drinks in exchange for a copy of The Rough Draft LP. We spent the rest of our Friday night drinking and playing video games at Zach's place in Renton, Washington.

Saturday

The departure of Captain Sprinkle Pants' Fun Boat to Hell was delayed by breakfast. We left awake and full and off to see what Spokane had to say for itself. We arrived at David's Pizza where Mark the owner beer-ed us, fed us and talked about why he loved, the pizza. We pretended to listen as we tended to our food. Once full Mark took us to Fast Eddie's, a Tucson-esque bar and grill. A few drinks later we found ourselves outside of "The Boulevard" in downtown Spokane. What began as a ploy to avoid a $5 cover charge, ended in a 15 minute, 4 song Class Project performance. Another sprinkly 15 second pitch success story. The crowd was less than receptive. The performers were less than sober. It was all that it needed to be. Saturday ended in the David's Pizza parking lot next to a fire truck turned pizza oven. Weeeeird.

Sunday

A hungover Captain woke up at 6:30 AM and drove to Missoula, Montana where we ate lunch and bought out the Army-Navy store. Some people bought oars, while other more sane people bought bandanas, hats or camera bags. I spent the rest of the day avoiding my work and catching up on my sleep. Noah and I are now sitting in Arvydis in a KOA (Kampground of America) just outside of the West entrance to Yellowstone National Park. Long sentence. Long weekend. * Overdeliver - verb: meaning: to shamelessly scramble after lying, truth stretching or "overpromising". Also see: bullshit.

Travel to Seattle for a Battle and Back.

             Really, there was no rapping in Seattle. Just a lot of press and some beer, and some more press and beer, and then some dinner with some press and some beer. It was pretty fun although the roller coaster under the space needle, after said beer, was not the best decision.

 

            After our appearance on the afternoon show, we did impromptu interviews near the spacey needle, and then went down to the market for some more random interviews. This is where we started at the brewery, really just looking for a drink, which is an amazing instigator to go ask for interviews. This led us to the owner and his wife who gave us a twenty-minute tour. It was sweet and overly scientific, but the guy was on point.

 

            After the beer tour we went upstairs imbued with a fresh sense of double ale confidence; with said confidence, we caught and threw the fish. I am proud to say not one of my fellow passionistas no myself dropped the slimy little beasts. I must say it was alarmingly easy to get behind the counter and start hucking fish. But we done did it, and did it well we did. Post-fish toss, we were watching street musicians and Jay felt as though he would see someone he knows…

           

            In an alley some ten minutes later Jay saw someone he knows. Zach, a buddy from, well, life/home/youth, moved to Seattle from Minnesota, where he has been playing football for the last few years, about four months ago. He is a bartender and we waited until he got off work to hang out.

 

            Whilst waiting the assistant producer of a morning talk show in Seattle took us out for beer and pizza. It was fun. Really nothing all that exciting. I interviewed everybody at the table, as the asst. producer had no idea what to ask us, considering she works for FOX and realized our chances of being conservative enough for the radio probably flew out the window ten minutes after meeting us. Thank god for demographics!

 

            We leave now for Spokane, where I here there is not much. I will let you know if that is true.

Not So Shoeless in Seattle.

So we made it to Seattle and the place is lovely. Cold as all hell, but I'm told that's a passing thing. Supposedly the fog is to burn off sometime around noon, and after that we expect a real scorcher of a day at 76. Remember, it's the humidity that gets ya. We interviewed a guy who refers to himself as the Passion Catalyst, which makes him only slightly crazier than Brett. It's nice to know that that person exists.

 

I forgot to mention we made it to the NIKE employee store. I walked out with three pairs of shoes (AF1/Dunk/Women's Converse w/ roses ((don't ask))) and some Oregon shorts for $133. It was sweet. The place sells everything NIKE makes for half-price and no sales tax. It's like the Factory store but full of good stuff. We interviewed the director of design for the Jordan brand and the dude was incredible. At 18 his guidance counselor suggested that as a black man from Inglewood he would do well in the Army. Needless to say that is advice he did not follow. Even the deepest cynic finds inspiration in a story like this.

 

I mentioned in the last post that we went to the bar-first-Chinese-restaurant-second Shanghai Tunnel with Jay's cousin Tony in Portland. The name of the restaurant comes from the very true story of the secret underground tunnels in Portland. These tunnels, some years ago, were traps for drunks to fall into, where there were subsequently anesthetized and shipped to China to be sold into slavery. Shanghaied as it were. Needless to say when this happened to Jack Bauer on 24, I hardly knew the history of such Sino-treachery, but now am impressed by the ingenuity of the plan.

 

We have an appearance on the Northwest Afternoon show tomorrow, taping at 10:00 am and airing at 3:00 pm on the local ABC affiliate KOMO. It is a six minute spot during which we will be discussing some of our favorite interviews during the trip. I am charged with discussing the 26 year old, very attractive epidemiologist studying HIV in marginalized populations in San Diego. This is all fine and dandy save that we have no video/audio/written notes of the interview. Actually, I was mostly wondering why the former model became a Johns Hopkins educated epidemiologist during our lunch at a trendy sushi restaurant in SD.

 

Needless to say, I have no idea what's going to happen tomorrow. Until then.

 

xoxo  

Some Things.

Hi. It has been a few days. We haven't really been busy, more on a vacation within a vacation. I have a lot to talk about so a list seems about right. If anybody has a problem with this, get over it. Or stop reading.

 

0. Not number one because it is a reference back to a previous post. Leah Drake thought my tattoo rant was pretty preachy. She's right. So in a newly developed Socratic way: Carpe diem quam minimum postero. If "seize the day" is positive, why would its elaboration/explanation/justification not also be positive? Am I crazy? Is it just too many words in a funny language?

 

1. Leavin' Beezy Land. Sunday we drove from Santa Rosa, CA to Portland, OR. It took about 16 hours. Zach drove most of the way but stopped after going completely insane. Brett came in with two outs in the top of the eighth and closed it out nicely. It was sad to leave Daniel Weber and Brett's family behind; they were really good to us, and we owe them all at least one super-blacked-out night somewhere in the world.

 

2. Redwood National Forest. Never have I had something so close to a spiritual experience. Certain awe is reserved for only the most amazing natural instances and this was one of those. When you stand among the Redwoods you feel as though you have to whisper. I have hundreds of surreal pictures. It was a great bonging moment for the PTP crew; kind of a check your ego at the door sort of thing.

 

3. Portland. Cool city. We a crashing with Jay's cousin Tony who is a stop-motion animator. Pretty much an avant-garde badass. He took us to Shanghai Tunnel, a cool bar then Asian restaurant (in that order), then Class Project did our first open-mic night at a some little bar. It was really fun. Just a few people and not a lot of bass. Like rap my mother could love.

 

4. Serann Newman. I don't remember much except for the name "Ran Ran." What I do remember, in a small tribute to her passing, is that she was a grandparent's friend and not a crotchety old lady. Rather I remember her as quite cool, which in this judgmental mind is no small feat. She is a good reminder to everyone that older does not always mean meaner. I appreciate that, almost as much as the fact that I have never written her first name, and may have spelled it wrong. Oh well. Cheers to Ran Ran.

 

xoxo

Tomorrow?

           Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero. Sieze the day cause you got no idea what's coming tomorrow. Seems simple enough. I have been catching a little bit of flack for the possible cynicism behind my latest body decoration. I'm a little pissed.

 

            I find there to be something tragic in the willful ignorance of the possibility of demise. If you just pretend that nothing bad will ever happen, you'll be fine. Right? No. And I find that kind of blindness repulsive. Ignoring a problem has never made it go away, from AIDS to apathy, ignorance literally kills people.

 

            To recognize the cruel possibilities of the world is not to embrace them, but rather contextualize their existence next to all the fluffy things. I neither hope, nor wish for anything, for to either hope or wish is to leave success to chance/fate/etc. I take responsibility for the life before and after me, and for that, I place little faith in tomorrow and ensure that today is the greatest day of my life.

 

            What I make of my day and what you make of your day is entirely my and your responsibility. Repeat the last sentence replacing day with life, afterlife, success, or cellar door. I profoundly pity those who live life passively, just as I pity those who are told they cannot do something and actually believe it.

 

            As our bus hurtles through the Redwoods, I find myself stuck on some Polish tourists, dead at the bottom of a French mountain. The story broke my heart this morning. I think my mother would use that as more logic to never leave 85716. I see it as all the more reason to make today worth dying for.

 

            Disregard, if only for a moment, the bubble in which many of us reside. Recognize that today, just like any other day, could be the last day of a fragile existence. Make sure today can bear the responsibility.

 

xoxo

Just a Pretty Picture.

Clinton Who?

          It is Friday and we are currently en route to meet Peter Gross, a wildlife dude who has been featured on a whole slew of morning television programs I would never watch. Word on the street is, he has a considerable amount of wild turkeys roaming about his large Napa property. It is also quite possible that he has a lot of Wild Turkey and just invited us to come get wasted. Only time will tell.

 

            Yesterday, Uncle Brett and I had a special day to ourselves while Zach and Jay caught up on some work at Brett's Mom's house. We met Armen Aussielo, owner of a local haunt in Santa Rosa, and also a real cool sports dude. His bar only serves beer and wine. I don't know why that is a vital piece of information, but I'm a vodka guy myself.

 

            After Armen, we met Bill Gallagher, silent G, who is purported to be the largest developer in Sonoma County. We spoke outside his office as he was walking his employees' dogs. The man, who by my estimation is slightly more successful than Jesus, is real relaxed and genuinely humorous. Not rollicking, sidesplitting funny, but humorous nonetheless. We left his office feeling pretty good, about to have some homemade paella by a guy named Gerard.

 

            Gerard Nevesky, paella cook for the stars. Dude has been making paella for five years and has somehow parlayed it into a globetrotting, near famous business that he runs out of Occidental, California. Occidental has one stop sign, at which we turned left, and soon found ourselves chatting with a guy cooking paella out of the back of his Land Cruiser. He started at 3:30, and had to jet to a gig at 5:00, but did not in fact leave until 5:30ish. We drank his homemade wine and ate his paella. It was delicious. Then he left for the Bohemian Grove party, where he was cooking for Bill Clinton, Bush I, and Henry Kissinger, none of whom he seemed all too impressed by.

 

            Wednesday, to jump back, was pretty boring. We rose at 5Am to go stand around San Francisco all day. To say it was a waste of time would be a huge understatement, although if you must waste time in a city, SF is not a bad place to do it. Seeing all those Bonds lovers makes me want to wretch, but as Armen the bar owner told us, "I don't wanna take the guy out on a date, I want him playing for my baseball team." Good enough.

 

xoxo

Catching-Up with the Webers

It was brought to my attention yesterday that we have interviewed 35 people as of last night. While this is a reason to celebrate as PTP builds towards its goal of 200 interviews for the summer, it creates a bit of problem for myself individually. As some of you may know, I am editing the majority of the interviews captured on video so that they can be placed on Jobing.com. As of today, I have completed 11 of these videos and admitted to Brett's mother, Kelly, that I will pretty much be playing catch-up for the majority of this 3 month journey. Sweet, right? So, if I don't post on this blog of ours for a long while, you'll all know exactly what I'm up to.

As a result, the booking of Class Project concerts has once again taken a back seat to my PTP obligations. It happens. On the bright side, we recently acquired Final Cut Pro which will take the place of the user friendly, yet efficiency-recenting iMovie. This will cut my editing time down significantly, but not so incredibly that I'll be able to finsih the ever-growing to-do list. Which I haven't had time to make.

Al is not lost. Last night Noah and I caught up with our best friend Dan (aka D-Web) and his parents for dinner at their lovely home in Santa Rosa, CA. I hadn't seen the Weber clan since graduation. Dan's girlfriend, and our long-time source for home-cooked meals in college, Kristy, made a short, but jubilant appearance. She's always in such a good mood. It used to raise my suspicions, but I've learned to love it. Dan's parents, Tom and Susan, were incredibly happy to see us and prepared us a wonderful feast of tri-tip, the best potatoes I've ever had, salad, and some of that famous Sonoma County wine. We ate outside on the wooden deck in their backyard and updated them on our travels, what we have learned so far, the ridiculous experiences we've had and our hopes for where we want to take PTP and Class Project both. It was perfect. After dinner, I explained to Susan that I had been feeling a little down in the past couple of days due to the overwelming amount of love and support that I had received at the Class Project Benefit Party, which my parents had thrown for us the previous Saturday. Of course it was uplifiting at the time, but I had found my heart sinking in the days following. I told her that dinner with the Webers had really helped bring me back to feeling normal again. She smiled her warm little smile and hugged me. We finished the evening by watching a live performance of Carlos Santana and Eric Clapton on Tom's entertainment center, which he obviously takes a lot of pride in. I would to. It looked and sounded amazing! I could see where Dan's love of sound and electronics came from. We thanked the Webers for their warmth and hospitality and D dropped us off back at Brett's house, where we watched a Tivo'd episode of House M.D. and passed out.

Fan the Flame.

So there's this fan in the front passenger corner of the RV. This fan, in the front passenger corner of the RV, has not worked since we came into possession of the RV, but we assume, at the time of its birth, the RV and this fan enjoyed each other's dual functionality. Alas, some years and many miles later, the fan sat dormant, reacting not to sweaty, frustrated flips of its supposed operating switch by its new, hopeful operators. 

 

This dormant fan, in the front passenger corner of the RV, recently, and much to our surprise, surged into usefulness once again, but not in the inherently limited role 

it was destined to play from creation. No, this little go getter of a fan refused its boring fate, and hopefully, albeit somewhat mysteriously, dislodged itself from the oppressive bonds of ball-and-socket mounting system, and has now to overcome only the dangling purgatory in which it swings due to its resilient green, silver and black wires,

 

Theses wires, furthermore, reflect the boundless complexity of this fan, in that even during it's unending protest against its utilitarian duty, a baffling number of wires is still required to supply it with the power it so boldly chooses not to use, as it spends its days turning about these wires, finally able to survey the land that has for so many years passed at speed limits behind its forcibly turned back.

 

What lies ahead for this fan? Only with time shall we see...

 

 

La La Land.

What follows is a list. It carries with it all of the advantages and shortcomings of every list that has come before and will come after. The order is now called "amorphously chronological," which essentially means absolutely nothing. A week feels like a year in LA traffic. Hopefully this will feel like 716 words.

 

1. New tattoo. Whilst interviewing Kevin Hinton, a tattoo artist in Venice with his own shop, I decided he may like to give a free tat. So we put the mic on him and he tattooed Quam minimum credula postero on the inside of my right bicep. It is the line that finishes Carpe diem, which I did consider including in the tattoo, but felt a passé suicide could have only appropriately followed. A certain mother in my life may say she was promised no more tattoos until after she died; I was not willing, however, to wait for what will certainly be a long, illustrious life for my mother. Translation? Google it. Or ask Jim Carlson. It's a highly interpretive language.

 

2. Class Project's Field Trip 07 Mixtape. We recorded two songs in LA Jay's various artist friends, including Dione the R & B singer who will more than likely be the next official member of the band. The kid sings beautifully and is a creative inspiration. Our recording sessions were amazing and the final product equally impressive. It also did not hurt to be recording in a five story beach house in Malibu, on the PCH. Songs will be on Myspace.com soon.

 

3. Malibu Inn. Great show on the 11th at the Malibu Inn. Nice spot overlooking the ocean right off the PCH. We went on first, a blessing in the unknown music world, and absolutely stole the show. It was fun. People went crazy. We sold a bunch of CDs, got some numbers (of artists), and were asked to do more shows in the area which is about the highest complement an opening act can receive. Dione, the aforementioned R & B singer, came out and sang the song Use Me Up with Jay and I. The house fell down. Who knew Bill Withers could reach such a young and diverse audience.

 

4. Dr. King's daughter's life coach. Brett and I traveled to Watts to interview Wanda Marie, the life coach of the late Yolanda King, daughter of the one and only MLK Jr.

I usually save reverence for children and the elderly but she was profoundly spiritual in a grab-bag-east-meeting-west kind of way. It was beautiful to hear her speak. She was pregnant at 16, mom drank, step dad raped her, and here she is, running Higher Ground Productions, which essentially decides the best way to use the King legacy all over the world.

 

A side note from the South American Apologist: When you think Watts, Crenshaw and Slausen, think nicer-than-most-of-Tucson. Not the hood, which we did visit some 40 blocks south while lost. Even LA people heard we were in Watts and acted amazed we got out alive. Not only did we get out alive, but Philip's BBQ on Crenshaw and Adams supplied me with the finest pulled pork sandwich I've ever had.

 

5. Class Party. Carol and Scott Whiting help a Class Project/Pursue the Passion fundraiser for us last night. Really just a huge BBQ with family and friends, and somehow there was money involved. We sold nine CDs and received generous donations from various friends and family members. Jay's nana, who competes with Bibi for cutest not-so-old-but-little-lady ever, promised we would be her prayers and gave us all personalized gifts (I got a business card holder, it will be stuffed with newpaper until I can buy some REALLY expensive business cards, none of that print off the internet business. I don't even want a title on my card, just something nearing cryptic). The night was closed by a sunset performance of two of our songs over a bucket and a saxophone, played by two of Jay;s childhood friends, in front of the 30 or so guests. It was beautiful.

 

Hope all is lovely in the 520. It is currently 74 degrees on the PCH on the way to San Francisco. I open to suggestions as to how to spend the next week.

 

Until soon.

California Dreamin".

I cannot reiterate enough the importance of a temperate climate. Everybody is considerably less irritable/tired/unhappy/smelly in California. It has been "oppressively hot" in LA over the last few days often tipping the thermometer at nearly 90 degrees. I saw a small man burst into flames in Ventura. Luckily what feels like an ocean breeze distinguishes Cali from the sweaty jungles of Vietnam.

            We are heading south on the 405 to interview a vice president of something involving building and whatnot. Not quite my cup of tea, but hey, maybe there will be A/C so we don't die of exposure to the harsh elements. We interviewed an epidemiologist over sushi in Long Beach. She studies the diseases contracted by overly passionate people, if you consider prostitutes and sex addicts passionate people.

 

            Brett has somehow acquired press passes for the Long Beach Summer Pro League which is populated by the NBA equivilent of St. Gregory basketball players. If that comparison doesn't work for you, think about four basketball fans combing the entire roster, finding only three recognizable names, then realizing they are only recognizable for either tragedy, disaster or treachery (see: Ndudu Ebi[sic]).

 

            First Class Project show of the tour went well. Special guests included the Browns (Tamera, Ed and Noah), my PA from KAMP radio (Kendall), and Seth's friend Vince, who wins the prize because he drove from Santa Barbara ten minutes after finding out about the show. As the winner he will receive a collection of cups from the delicious Subway chain of sandwich shoppes, which we will collect around this fine land of ours.

 

            We were on FOX 13 news last night at 11:30. We were supposed to be on FOX's 10:00 news, but got bumped because of a four foot alligator in a swimming pool. There is not really a lot to say about that. Bumped for the gator. When we finally aired, the piece took odd notice of Jay and I and including a 10 second snippet of me rapping into the camera. If it hadn't of been on FOX I possibly could have felt some semblance of pride. As it stands, I think I might get a Christmas card from Bill O'Reilly and for that, I feel sick to my stomach.

 

            In case anyone without my DNA/email address reads this, send us some email. We are receiving a lot of email and it is not coming from the places I want it to. Criticize, compliment, complain, curse, whatever. Each of us have email accounts NAME@pursuethepassion.com. (Noah, James, Brett, Zach). If there is anything you would like to know, ask. We have lots of time to do such things. Anyone hot in Tucson? Buenos Aires had there first snow storm in 80 years yesterday, so head on down and enjoy some climate change.

 

xoxo 

See Below.

The following is a list of possible titles for this BLOG entry:

Passion Aggressive

The Heat of Passion

Passion Flailing

Captain Sprinklepant's Funboat to Hell

RV There Yet?

119 Degrees and Climbing

We Got Ants

We're Lost

10 Reasons to Love Google Maps

Please Sir, May I Have Another

 

            I have hesitated to write a BLOG as the first few days of the trip were somewhere between miserable and disastrous. I have, however, pegged my personal definition of the word passion: Passion (n):Fickle emotional mistress lying somewhere between lust and rage; i.e. Hercules killed his entire family in a fit of passion. How do you define passion?

           

            Phoenix is not the worst city in the world, as to be the worst city in the world it would have to be in Texas, but it's pretty close. We interviewed the owner of a company called Fairytale Brownies. Seriously, that was the highlight of 72 hours in Phoenix. The brownies were delicious.

 

            We thought we had left the heat in Phoenix but it caught up with us just before San Diego. Jay's car, which we are returning to Thousand Oaks/his mother, said it was 119 degrees whilst overheating. Close your eyes for a moment and imaging 119 outside and the heat blasting inside. Hell on wheels.

 

            Mission Beach 4th of July was tame. Poverty is an incredible motivator for clean and sober living. We met some college buddies for dinner, watched some fireworks, and went to sleep in the back of the RV. We awoke with ants. Everywhere. One Sea World trip and a few cans of Raid later, the ants appear to have ceded the back of the RV, but are mounting a counter-attack/insurgency in the pantry zone. I will update this a dispatches from the front line reach me at HQ.

 

            The group dynamic is interesting. Lots of passive aggressive behavior and use of the "royal we," a favorite of a certain (grand)maternal Arizona Inn alumni. I spend a lot of time with headphones on. Zach and Brett have been great about driving. We almost got hit by a train, but otherwise, we've been golden. The lock on the RV door ceased to function thirty minutes into the trip, which we saw as an issue, but was outdone by the door refusing to open outside of an interview. Imagine four boys piling out of a RV through the window ten feet up the side. With all of my mechanical expertise both problems were resolved, plus I created the evidence for some future insurance fraud. So we got that going for us, which is nice.

 

            Zach, Jay and I saw the Padres get shellacked by the Braves last night. Jay's father's good friend Rick took us out before, during, and after the game. It was a long night. We stayed at dan's uncle's beach house/mansion in La Jolla. Note the double possessives in the last few sentences. Sleeping in a bed was amazing, and furthermore the lack of ant really iced the cake.

 

            Jay and I are currently driving on the 5N to LA on the way to Ventura for a show tonight. 77 degrees and overcast on the way to a high of 83. Besides the nauseous attitude of the southern Californian, this place is like heaven. All due respect to the Rosenberg family, but you really picked a hot place for all of us to live. Besides the heat, I miss Tucson and all of its people I love.

 

xoxo.

Album Art.

COVER:

INSIDE (p. 2/3). Click on the picture and it will become larger/better resolution. 

BACK of BOOK (p. 4)

BACK/TRAY