a hug hound in a pig pound

So, Chicago. Chi-town. The Windy City. The Big Bratwurst. Let’s just say that our experience there was somewhat mixed. Chicago itself is a beautiful, bustling, diverse big city and the Rogers Park neighborhood where we holed up for our show was amazing—it wasn’t your usual hipster hangout. I only saw about three or four guys dressed like my grandpa wearing huge chunky glasses. While I did work on this very computer at the Heartland Cafe, the rest of the crew did laundry at a laundromat that showed Spongebob Squarepants in Spanish. I drank a few bottles of Point, a beer brewed in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, that was completely fine and anonymous. We ate two delicious meals at the Heartland Cafe and one of our waiters looked exactly like James Cameron. So far, so good.

And then came the show. We followed a guy named Mike who played a nice acoustic set to yapping restaurant patrons. Not a good sign. Thankfully, the restaurant patrons decided to shut up by the time we played. By leaving.

Yep. We played to six people (maybe) and a group of scurrying grumpy wait staff who seemed embarrassed to be in our presence. The Heartland Cafe is a fine establishment for eating and drinking but maybe not for playing an indie rock show. I had to play with brushes (sigh) which made our cover of “You Belong To The City” a little strange. We soldiered on like the professionals we are (this is the part where you laugh uncontrollably). Many thanks to Evan, Katie, Ben, Sarah, Mike, and Jon for coming to the show. Merch sold? That’s a big negatory, little buddy.

But, hey, that Chicago skyline! It’s something else, no?



At least our run of hospitality keeps on a-trucking, as the lovely and talented Caroline offered up her apartment cum art gallery to us. I, of course, being the snorer I am, was once again relegated to the van and the promise of back spasms to come. I was awakened by a cell phone call at 6 in the morning from a frantic Karolyn, who made us get up an hour to early because she has yet to grasp the subtleties of the time zone system. She was properly excoriated for her folly, but we did make good time to Pittsburgh, so I guess it was okay.

Lucas

America's High Five

Grand Rapids, Michigan...

We rolled in around 5:30pm eastern time and found the small record store Shipwreck Music we were playing that Monday night. The place was located in the "cooler" section of town. We all split ways briefly, some of us went to one of the many liquor stores nearby, Karolyn went to the "Yesterdog" (anybody who is anybody in Michigan goes there to get a gut clogging treat), Lucas and Jon went to work down the street, James started a peeing trend in the corner of the alley (all the rest of the boys peed in the same place after him).




After we played to a very attentive group, we journeyed to the suburbs where Ma and Pa America (the record store owners) put us up for the night. Jim and Pat are Ma and Pa and some of the nicest people we've run into so far on this trip. Their cute kitty destroyed one of our airmattresses, but it will be repaired tonight (hopefully).

When was the last time you slept with 3 dogs and 7 cats?

Indy part II

Other Indianapolis highlights include:

- We saw 5 girls vomit at an art opening that had only 2 bottles of wine.

- We invented a new language based on an sign we saw at peppy’s grill advertising “hamburgs”. Other variations include, “bisc n grave”, “breakfa spesh” and “ho dos”.

- We went to an eighties themed punk rock prom wearing items purchased at a value village on the wrong side of the tracks. See photos above.

- We stayed in an amazing house with some very nice people. Thanks Jo, Greg and Jason!

- When we can home from the club, Lucas was so drunk he tried to go into the garage instead of the house and was attacked by the garage door. He lost a shoe and eventually the garage door fell on his head. The night ended with Lucas Screaming, “I can’t find my shoe. I can’t find my shoe!”

- James refused to allow Karolyn to charge her phone in the billiard room because, “she dissed the plugs in the room”.

- Lucas danced with some Indiana ladies, who, after dancing with Jon and I, it was as if they had been eating rice cakes all the time and then lucas came along on the dance floor and they were like, “this is ambrosia, this is what the gods must eat!”

- We saw 3 dogs drinking water from a wheel barrow that contained 2 basketballs and a dead bird.

- We witnessed a Kids Festival in Downtown. See photo of cow above.

- One of us danced on a pool table. See photo above.

- Monuments. Lots of monuments.

Indy

Venice is Sinking spent two days in ‘Indy’, and for the sake of time, we’ll combine them into one entry. The first, and most pressing, event to report is our screenplay. We feel that the tyranny of New York City’s stranglehold on movie set location has to come to an end, and our film, “Monumental” (working title, patent pending) will take care of that. This portion of the entry will be provided by Steve Miller:

All right, check it.
Downtown Indianapolis has got to have more monuments than any city I’ve ever been to, except of course for D.C. And they’re all insane. Let’s list them, shall we?
-The WWI memorial: large, squarish, imposing. Seems to be modeled after a large tomb.
-The Obilisk: imagine the Washington monument made of black marble with a copper top.
-The other WWI memorial: a black marble tomb on a floor of black marble with a column in each corner. Each column is topped by a golden eagle in the Egyptian style.
-The center tower: large statue on a massive stone base flanked with huge fountains. Located in a big traffic circle in the center of downtown.

Looking back at the city from the top of the tower you can see all the other monuments lined up on a big grassy mall, just like in D.C. On one side of the mall is the National Headquarters of the American Legion. On the other side of the mall is the Scottish Rite Cathedral, a huge gothic style cathedral. It has no religious symbols or iconography any where on it. Strange. At the end of the mall is the marble tomb with the eagle columns.
On the other side of the tomb is the Indianapolis Public Library.
And now, the Plot:

The Earth has a second, invisible moon. The scottish rite free masons have been keeping this a secret from the public for years. They have a plan for world domination (of course)
involving this hidden moon. Oh yeah, they’re also vampires that can only be killed by copper, not silver. That’s just a myth.
They are opposed by the American Legion, whose true purpose is keeping America safe from the masons. They have waged a secret war for years, and now the American Legion has the masons in a bind. They’ve got the STAFF.
What staff, you ask?
Well, this is the mason’s plan:
get the staff
wait until the secret moon lines aligns with the other moon
place the staff in the slot on the tomb monument at the end of the mall
stand the hell back, because it gets intense. The light from the moons hits the staff and shoots a beam at the top of the obilisk. The obilisk is really a power conduit, and it shoots a beam back to the tomb where it hits the four eagles and forms a power grid. Then the power grid shoots a beam to the WWI memorial, which houses the remains of every Indiana soldier killed in combat. The dead soldiers come to life and take over the world, and everything sucks.

But the American Legion has the staff. It’s being guarded by Abraham Lincoln, who lives in the basement of the Public Library. Or more specifically, in the underground river that has a mouth in the basement of the Public Library. Because he has gills. All presidents from Lincoln onward have been dipped in the fountain of youth, which Ponce deLeon found and the government pumped under the white house. They all fight for the American Legion. And they all have gills. The fountain of youth gives you immortality, but you have to live in the water and breathe through gills. Luckily, Indainapolis has a complicated system of underground canals.
And Lincoln has the staff. He also swims up into fountains and steals all the copper pennies, which he melts down into copper weapons for fighting the mason vampires.

So, some kids roll into town, sneak into the Library, meet Lincoln, accidentally allow the staff to be stolen by the masons, fight vampires in a race against time, and save the day just as the dead soldiers start coming back to life amongst the glowing power beams and glowing monuments, all the while learning fun facts about Indiana history.

For real.

We leave it open for sequal based on the Immortal Presidents fighting crime in the ocean.

Also, everyone got silly drunk and took off their shirts last night.
There are pictures.

Steve.

The Merediths + Jon Polk

Sweet Escapes

Here's a jingle I wrote to the tune of Rupert Holmes' "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)". It's an advertisement for a fake dessert restaurant called Sweet Escapes. Ahem. Here goes:

Do you like pina coladas?
Doing it on some chocolate cake?
Do you like coconuts or some shit?
Do you like things with fudgy flakes?
Do you like making love to mocha?
Doing it in a chocolate shake?
Then you better come to my restaurant!
It's motherf---ing Sweet Escapes.

I should be a jingle-writer.

Lucas

Louisvillainy

Do you believe in fate? Me, I'm not much of a fatalist. I like to take responsibility for my actions. Actually, I don't. But I DO like to blame other people for things and have them take responsibility for my actions. Regardless, or irregardless, or ungardless, I don't really believe in divine providence. Or at least, I didn't believe in it until a fateful night in Louisville (pronounced Loo-uh-vull) two nights ago.

Despues de un after-party that involved push-up bras, drunken moms, tire-squealing SUVs, and breaking beer bottles in parking lots, our merry band trundled--or rather stumbled--down the main hipster strip in Louisville toward Cahoots, an establishment that serves greasy food and good times. Last time we went to Cahoots (we play Louisville a lot) I witnessed a man defecating in a urinal trough and a fight over someone's old lady within, oh, five minutes. That tells you what kind of classy joint it is.

Anyway, we were promised that Cahoots was only four blocks away by Jesse from the Merediths (who, by the way, played a stellar set earlier at the RK--maybe their best and weirdest yet). I don't know what blocks are like where you come from, but where I come from "four blocks" does not equal "30 minute hike." So we are a million miles from home and a thousand miles from our van when the sky opens up in a most unexpected fashion, sending down sheets of rain that drive us into Akiko's, a sushi bar cum karaoke place cum schlubby guy showcase. This was the hand of God steering us toward destiny.

I have to backtrack and say that we've been talking about Bob Seger a lot lately, as you do when you're on the road. Mainly we've been talking about "Turn the Page", which might possibly be one of the smarmiest, sweatiest, most arrogant, sweatiest, oiliest, sweatiest songs ever recorded. I mean, the man even references his profound ability to sweat in the song, and when have you ever seen a picture of Bob Seger that didn't make you want to take a shower afterwards? The man is sweaty. It's true. He is a sweaty, sweaty man. He was born with pit stains.

So "Turn the Page" has been on our minds. We don't really know the lyrics but we've been botching them steadily for the whole trip (remind me later to teach you the lyrics to the song I wrote for an imaginary dessert restaurant called "Sweet Escapes") and imagining ourselves in the song, sweating onstage with the Silver Bullet Band.

We trundle into the neon and flourescent glow of Akiko's karaoke room while some Louisville ladies (featuring omnipresent push-up bras, of course) warble an off-key rendition of some modern country song that none of us knows (or admits to knowing). We take a seat. And then, seemingly out of thin air, in walks Joey. A working man. A man still wearing his apron and red work shirt. A man with a paunch and a bald head and out-of-date eyeglasses. A man still wearing his nametag for whatever anonymous food service establishment he works with.

He took the stage, confident in what he was about to unleash on us. And the little colorful 8-bit TV screen thingy displayed that he was indeed about to unleash "Turn the Page". It was a Christmas miracle five months after Christmas. Microphone clutched in a death grip, the man prowled the stage with animal grace, nailing all of Seger's sweaty melodies while adding his own working class, stuck in the kitchen, ain't been laid in four months fury to the proceedings. The entire place was alive with energy, all of us sloshing beers on each other singing along as Joey told us about smoking the last night's cigarette and how the amplifiers buzzed in his head. What began as a sweaty, oily, sweaty, and smarmy paean to sweaty rock excess was reborn as a working class anthem: "Me...Joey...I'm the star. I'm America. I'm the one keeping this ship of state afloat. I'm the one on the stage. Me. Joey."

It was a glorious five to seven minutes, a real testament to the transformative power of karaoke (who am I, Greil Marcus?). And, then, in a blink, Joey was gone, off to whatever greasy, health code-deficient dungeon he came from. Before he left the stage, I boozily walked up to him and patted him on the back and said something along the lines of "You are the greatest person I've ever met."

He looked at me like he had an appointment to make, not really making eye contact. "Cool," he mumbled. And then he was gone.

Cahoots was okay as far as they go, but we all knew the night really ended back at Akiko's, much like Steinbeck knew his journey was over after New Orleans. We were just prolonging the magic.

Lucas

So we played Chapel Hill last night...

...and everybody's putting the pieces together okay this morning. We actually got James into the shower at a reasonable hour this morning, which is good as he takes about 35 to 45 minutes to cleanse himself, which is particularly odd because the man has dreadlocks, so he doesn't even clean his hair. To paraphrase Tom Waits: "What's he building in there?"

Mary Katherine has shown us unbelievable amounts of generosity; she's in the kitchen as we speak whipping up some fine smelling hash browns. She has also elucidated the Chapel Hill vs. Carrboro conflict a bit for us, giving us a dual insider/outsider perspective. To make a long story short, everyone in Chapel Hill/Carrboro is nuts if they think they are even different cities.

The show last night went pretty well, though I must admit to playing an interesting but unnecessary "alternate" drum part on "Pop Song" (we have to name these tunes one of these days). All of the bands were good. North Elementary's new lineup is pretty great and Work Clothes were a delightful surprise. So far, so good as far as other bands go...no inappropriate screamo bands yet!

The van ride up was pretty uneventful and very pleasant, including a sojourn to Bojangles that met with mixed reviews (for the record, my biscuit was delicious). Alex, our former keyboardist and current favorite person, has tagged along for the tour, which must be slightly awkward for him. I asked him if it was weird seeing someone else play the parts that he played up until last year and he said "Yeah..." Such eloquence!

Anything else of consequence? We saw a very cute raccoon (dubbed,in a moment of unthinking political incorrectness, the "City Coon"), took a nice morning walk around the block, ate some huge and swiftly served burritos, and listened to Alex slurp coffee and discuss the foibles of spoiled Krab Meat.

North Carolina is a beautiful state and we hate to leave it so soon, but Louisville awaits!

Godspeed, Baptist Bump!