July 27 2009 "bipolar skies"

Another rough sleep. Moist and sweaty this time. Always with the sweaty. Moist was a new concept. 8:30 am. I did not want to be alive. Straight for the water and several gasping gulps later I realize today. This far into the exodus. That I hate sweating. I took a seat at the back deck of the cabin and collected myself. I watched matt swim around in the lake and slowly everyone else emerged from their sleeping quarters. The sweet escape from reality, sleep, was far away even though my brain was starving for it. Matt's dad informed us that we were not to be lounging around the cabin or lake area and we should be out doing "touristy" things instead. So after some commotion we got into FDR as a collective and ventured off in search of the sleeping giant. A literal rock formation, not the terrible bible worship band. However we didn't get far. At a tourists center, we were informed that in order to get the the rocks that form the giant, we were going to have to hike 28 kilometers. No thank you. Not after sleeping on a mound for 4 hours and waking up dead. Call me a quitter. I dont give a fuck. We made a quick stop in Silver Islet for some pictures and to visit the angriest dog on the planet. Decidedly we headed straight to Thunder Bay to find the venue. Thunder Bay is small and dirty. We located the venue and loitered around for 5 hours. What to do in thunder bay?... Go to safeway 9 times, and skateboard or in my case, walk and explore. The black pirates pub opened up and we crowded in and set up shop. It seemed a mormon playing a trombone was going to be headlining tonight. Fuck yes. The bands that played were... different. The trombone mormon fellow was in a broootal sludge doom band. An angry punk band followed, then a heavy as fuck metal band. When gsts played Drew pushed his guitar head into the ceiling and water fell out on his head. This was the best moment on tour thus far. The look on his face was priceless. Gsts managed to tangle everything that could be tangled and left the stage a giant mess. Cope played, I smashed into Durell. People asked us to play more songs which was pretty cool. After chatting with some local and non local folks, we went back to the cabin snacking on boxes of triscuts*** awaiting a feast that Matt's parents were preparing for us. We are lucky. And dirty. We feasted and talked about whatever tired smelly assholes talk about then headed to bed. Oh sweet sweet honey. Reuben, however, was the fly in my honey-bed of reality escape. I love this man, but not when he passes out on the floor, gargling his mucus. Worst noise ever.

I passed out for a few sweet hours constantly waking up to the sound of Reuben "sleep with

both eyes open" Houewling.

*** Someone is responsible for pilfering an unopened box of my triscuts. I was quite upset about this. The search for the culprit continues...

July 26 2009 " don't do drugs and phone your girlfriend"

Driving to thunder bay today. Weather cooled off quite a bit. Decent sleep. Durell made a comment about a cat tied to a string next to the van. The cat was not amused. I tried my hand at sleeping while someone drove. Impossible. Every sharp turn, every rumble strip was enough to get my heart beating out of my chest. We stopped only for food and fuel. Todd killed a lot of the drive while Reuben slept in the back seat, his eyes glued shut with pus. Awful. The destination we so fervently sped towards was Matt's parent's cabin. For a 9 hour drive, nothing eventful happened. No good conversation even. Oh well. We arrived and unpacked. Matt's' parents made us dinner. We decided to take a night swim. 5 sets of shriveled manhood later, we dressed up for a walk around the lake where we took pictures, shot fireworks and sat around in a field staring at the stars. The night sky is an impressive sight in thunder-bay. Dont see stars like this in Alberta. I slept on the front lawn in a tent on some lumpy sod.

I fell asleep lost inside my own head.

July 25 2009 "i h8 skateboarding"

I woke up sweating, no surprise there. This trip has been a steam room on wheels. Listening in on the chatter outside the van, it seems that Drew, at some point in the early morning unbeknownst to the others, commandeered the Gsts van and was not answering his phone. After some swearing he called one of us and was going to meet us at a walmart. But before we left to meet up we packed up our shit, threw a brick at a television screen and took some pictures of where some of our disgruntled caravan had slept. The field we were in had a dilapidated barn and some of the more adventurous of us had set up camp inside. No lights just some hay to sleep on and in some cases, knoodling. Unknown to them, the very ground they slept on, amidst the rotting structure and random farm garbage, lay a decomposing canine in one room and a decomposing cow in the other. What a treat. I'm glad I stayed in the van. I needed food in my stomach real bad-like so we headed to meet drew and got some smoothies. The road to Winnipeg awaited us Manitoba was new territory for me, however, my excitement was quickly dashed upon entering the newly adventured province. Why do the roads look like this? I don't know. I might be spoiled living in Alberta. A fast unrelenting drive to Winnipeg and we were there, lost on one way roads. impossible to navigate. We parked the van and tried our luck at finding the venue on foot. We inquired at a few stores as to where war on records music shop was and were pointed in the right direction. Filing into the basement and checking out the selection of records we found a few releases from our local xTruex which was cool. A restaurant called Mondragon was right next to the venue and we decided to eat there. A very cool and tasty place to eat. My favorite thing about Winnipeg by far. I was full and quite tired now so I ventured to the van for a nap. The van was parked across the street from a bar called "whiskey dix" what a pile of shit. Napping, then waking soaked in sweat. I had nightmares that I don't remember. Probably for the best. Loading into this venue was a pain. We had to carry everything from our shitty parking spot (there was little to 0 parking in this area due to the fringe festival happening) through an incredibly sketchy alley, down the sidewalk a block, and then down 2 flights of stairs. and all along the homeless people of Winnipeg were harassing us for money. What they should have been harassing us for was some memory retention because even though we said no while dragging a piece of equipment to the venue, on the way back to the van and again on the way into the venue they would ask. Kill. After that shitfest, we settled into the venue and Electric Candles opened. Very cool 3 piece. Gsts and Cope played and that's all I have to say about that. I am not feeling Winnipeg. The party in the parking lot outside the venue was a discouraging mess. We loaded our shit and got the fuck out out of downtown. Andrea from Kursk was graciously letting us crash at her place. We ate our tofu from the previous day and everyone settled into bed quick.

I fell asleep listening to "Make Love The Bruce Campbell Way".

July 24 2009 "the void"

I woke up thinking about what to do on our day off. With zero plans in this unfamiliar town, the morning was quite boring as we spent it lounging around Jenna's house, taking showers and arguing with each other. Sleeping in the van, I had missed out on a gong show it seems. Taylor got lucky last night and Reuben and Mike got stick and poke tattoos in commemoration of the tour. Incredibly enough, Mike got a boy turtle on one knee and a girl turtle on the other. The boy turtle with GSTS on the shell and the girl turtle with cope . Ask him to make the turtles kiss, its real cute. Reuben got ccddss which stands for "cross Canada dog dad shit show" one of our blog entry titles. Insane. Looking at my spoiled wounds they actually seem to be getting better which is a good thing because I dislike painful ooze. More arguing ensued and we decided to go to a grocery store for some breakfast supplies. We made some hefty omelette's and hash browns in Jenna's kitchen as well as prepare some tofu for later. Kaylee brought back slurpees and we sat around arguing what to do next. I was amazed to learn that Regina had more than farm fields filled with trash and abandoned appliances. They had a beach, so the destination was set. The drive to the beach was a windstorm sitting in the back of Jenna's car. I was having a great time until a grasshopper shot through the open window and hit me in the neck. With the windows rolled up, we arrived at the beach to enjoy a good ol' fashioned Regina sunset. A few of us ended up swimming but most sat at the picnic table in the shade like the senior citizens we can't wait to be. Seniors drink though, right? Because that's what was on the agenda for tonight. A bonfire was in the works also. We returned to Jenna's and Matt was MIA once again so after a bad time locating him far far away from where we were, we drove off into the country side of Regina for a good ol' fashioned Regina bonfire under the stars. Many people from the show the previous night were in attendance. A few of them were shooting a pellet gun at a log with cans placed on it precariously close to where I was sitting. Drinking began immediately. I began to drink apple juice, antibiotics ahoy! Some frustrating conversation on the topic of religion and abortion came up and I decided to opt out quickly and head in for some sleep. Being old as fuck has its benefits. However my dreams of sleep were interrupted in a harsh manner as an extremely high and drunk Durell Smith had come to tell me we had to move the van because it was not allowed where it was. So this severely impaired man maneuvered our van out of one sketchy field and into another. The sound of people fumbling around and bitching about where they were going to sleep was enraging. I wanted to sleep now. Eventually everyone fucked off to bed.

The last thing I heard before I fell into the sweet escape of reality was the sound of Todd puking and groaning in the front seat.

July 23 2009 "vagina"

Enter regina. An A&W parking lot. Approx. 8 AM. I decided to see a doctor about the colorful fluids coming out of the wounds I had accumulated skateboarding. We located a medical center for a drop in. Thankfully I had brought my health care card for such an occasion. I waited in the clinic for about an hour before being led to a smaller room. The doctor entered blank faced and unorganized. Dropping an armful of folders at my feet while asking "Whats the problem then?" In a callous tone. Explaining what had happened to my skin, the doctor laughed at me and told me he was going to give me a tetanus shot. In conjunction with the shot I was to be put back on antibiotics. All of this without even looking at one pus covered wound. What an amazing doctor! Post shot and prescription in hand, I waddled back to FDR and we drove to the venue. Bad vibrations consumed me. Trying to overcome these feelings of dread, we took advantage of the air conditioning in the mall. We ate and went to some record shops where I proceeded to spend too much money. Again with the bad vibrations. I could not shake these feelings of anxiety. Perhaps there was something in that tetanus shot. Milling around in the parking lot of the venue and trying to fit in an awkward fever-sleep wasn't working out either. The promoter showed up so we loaded up and set up out gear. I would like to use this opportunity to say that Regina's scene is totally fucking weird. Secondly, I would like to say that I got screwed out of switching my mislabeled invasion shirt . Who the hell buys youth large size shirts anyways? Better yet, who sells youth large by deceiving the buyer and telling them they are adult large. The dudes in invasion, thats who. It was at this moment in time where I decided to forget about my $10 forever. Mike and I had a steam breathe / journal writing sesh before we played. Bonding time. During our set Drew got popped in the mouth somehow and he did a great job making me feel like a shitbag for it. It was an accident and apparently accidents are unacceptable. GSTS were drinking so that meant lets wreck everything. By the end of the set Drew was hanging upside down from the basketball net Fugazi style and got stuck. Perfect way to end it. Failed States played. They wrecked the mic stand. Show was OVER. Bad vibrations. still there eating away at my brain. Packed up the van and went on a pizza exploration. Total success. After my first bite I realized that I had left my shitty mp3 player on the couch at the venue. Or maybe I just couldn't find it. Anxiety. Eating pizza with locals we secured a place to crash. This feeling of impending doom that I could not shake was beginning to show, so I slept in the van because I couldn't be around humans anymore.

I laid in the van and fell asleep listening to my own thoughts heckle and annoy me while everyone else socialized into the night.

July 22 2009 "gangrene sets in"

Matt knocks on the door, smiling and gesturing to the knob for me to let him in. God send death. By far the worst sleep on tour, if any. It took us a very long time to pack up because we were all dead. Durell's brain has reached the point of no return. He has smoked himself retarded. I introduce to you : Permafried Durell. Regardless of the missing brain cells he's quite funny when he's confused and on a different planet. We met up with Noah and Vanessa for some tasty breakfast and a nice waitress too. Todd stared at his food while the rest of us ate. Then, shortly after we finished eating, he began picking at his plate and slowing consuming his cold congealed eggs. After breakfast Noah drove Vanessa to work and then met up with us again to take us shopping. We went to a music store and got some odds and ends. Todd fantasized about bass gear. Like that scene in Wayne's world. Except with a smelly dude with dreads and a bas guitar..... the Excalibur.... We headed to the mall to waste some time and along the way a random bro-fuck driver leaned over to us out his car window and politely said "Excuse me, but you fellows need to see a hairdresser." He then sped off. He was alone. What was the point of that? I will piss on his grave. We got some ice cream and sat on a bench in the mall across from a makeup store, making a lot of jerkish comments about the plastic faces inside preening their caked on masks. A 13 year old white kid walked by us staring so I stared back. His response to this was "What the fuck are you looking at?" as he walked away hurriedly. I'll piss on his grave too. I walked Noah to his car gave him a hug, got the van and picked up the corpses. Matt was MIA ....again. We found him 45 minutes later on his phone with his girl. Sweet. After finding him we went to Chelsea's house and napped. Tour has been exhausting. How do cock stars do it? after our nap we went downtown to catch The Kettle Black and Les Taberfucks. The kettle black is unreal you have no idea. Do yourself a favor and catch a show of his. We ate some tasty subs in a sketchy park as cop cars drove by. We knew we had a long drive ahead to Regina. So we cleaned our shitty van out and prepped Jeff Wayne's musical adaptation of War of the Worlds on the ipod.

Somewhere along the way I fell into a coma and woke up to the sounds of the grind finale as the sun began to rise.

July 21 2009 "just fucked"

Reuben opened the doors to our van to let us know that it was a bit past 7 AM and that he was going to wake up Taylor who had slept in When he came back he said that TAYLOR SAID that he didn't remember wanting to get moving to Calgary early on and the only thing on his mind was sleeping in. I couldn't complain. Its 7 am. I want to fucking sleep. The Gsts crew, however, decided to forge on to Calgary I didn't envy those guys. Not only did we get to sleep in, but we ate a gnarly trucker breakfast at a truck stop in the mountains, plus cleaned out the van, got gas, and took showers in the gas station bathroom sink. I was driving and that meant pounding the road so hard I could feel it quiver under the power of the gas pedal. Along the way we stopped to take a lot of pictures and Durell started some van mosh. When you're driving treacherous winding mountain roads and there are bodies flying into you as you're trying to steer ita a cuase for concern. What the hell are we doing with our lives? Regardless of the human interference, I hammered the road and made it to the new black center in record time. As we pulled up we discovered that drew from Gsts was a sweaty corpse. I almost felt bad for getting him really sick, but we had to move gear up a lot of stairs so I did that instead. Time to breathe steam. Swallow Your Tongue played a Left For Dead cover which was pretty sweet. Kali totally destroyed that place. Their drummer is an impressive piece of work. Goddamn gravity blasts. I was not stoked to follow them because as far as I was concerned the show was done after they played, total insanity. Drew, now heavily medicated, joined the rest of Gsts on stage and they proceeded to shred the fuck out of what was left of the new black. Ah, to be young again. Our set up took forever as there were many cable issues, and monitor issues... However the only issues that matter are korn issues. The crowd exploded and so did the microphone cord 2 lines into the first song and in between the next 2 songs a second microphone cord was also destroyed. So, I started using the bass drum microphone for a while. It electrocuted the shit out of me. Eventually I was just standing in the middle of a war zone. Kids throwing chairs and bodies flying through the air screaming the lyrics. We also played a song that I fucking hate. Taylor "money bags" Geddes made a killing selling half of his distro at this show alone. The best part of the show, however, was having our friends from Edmonton and surrounding areas coming to Calgary to support us at the show. It really meant a lot seeing some familiar faces on the road. We packed up and went to Gerry's diner to listen to Freebird and eat breakfast at 2 am. After a lengthy goodbye to our Edmonton counterparts, we made our way to Kathleen's house to engage in showers, a Cozmo quiz and yet another fever like- sleep state. The question "am I alive?" keeps repeating in my subconscious.

I lay sweating my remaining water into the floorboards as I listen to Patrice O'Neil yelling for hours.

July 20 2009 "hot pepperoni slices... all over my body"

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July 19 2009 "my first mistake was believing in myself"

Danzig, the annoying but impossibly cute cat, had managed to make my first sleeping experience at Edna haus a miserable one. Chewing his food in my ear and taking a massive smash in his cat box which filled the room I slept in with a terrible musky smell. Besides that I layed on the floor all night just fine. We have today off. Translating to 'no show'. I make this sound like work when it really isn't. Either way, time to relax. Durell was still MIA from the previous night. He's probably curled up in some dude's ripped chest. We started the day off skateboarding in front of Edna house then all of a sudden things got radical. Confidence was up this morning. In increments I bombed the massive hill in front of the house. At first 1/4. Then 1/2 then 3/4... I can probably do the whole thing. Wrong. After an impressive slide across the pavement (shirtless I might add) I decided now would be a good time to go to superstore to get some medical supplies. Little did I know my phone was not in my pocket anymore and after getting supplies to bandage myself up and eating some breakfast it was decided that not going to the beach on such a nice day was a stupid idea and we weren't stupid. Before we left i searched all over for my phone I thought perhaps it fell out of my pocket when I tasted the asphalt. I was correct. My prize for being correct was collecting all 201 pieces of it scattered across the road. *little known fact* cars hate cellphones. We got into the van and before heading to the beach, stopped at a rogers so I could purchase a brand new cellular telephone device. I'm a slave. The beach was nice. Steve and Travis buried me in a hole and gave me a bad pair of sand breasts. I lost my 5 dollar sunglasses but then found them 30 min later on the floor of the ocean. After leaving the beach, Travis and I picked up a bookshelf and we met up with everyone from the beach at Green Lettuce Restaurant for some veggie eats. The pakora was incredible. After dinner I learned what the terms 'Amish churn' and 'Mexican avalanche' meant. Fucked. Taylor insisted we wake up at 7 am to hit the road. Who invited this guy? Before bed we took some sweet pictures to remember my first visit to Edna house and went to bed.

Slowly, scab covered and surely, I fell asleep listening to the soundtrack of harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban.

July 18 2009 "combing my hair with a shotgun"

Struggling through a fever like sleep state while fending off a barrage of flies that persisted to land on my face, I awoke to the sounds of Reuben playing guitar in his kitchen. Day 2 begins. Must be prepared for a show in Vancouver tonight. Travis lives in Vancouver now.He's just another one of the people I love that abandoned Edmonton. Being bitter can wait because I smell something delicious. Ruben's mom had prepared us a tasty breakfast. (for real). So we ate, packed up and were wished well as we headed towards Vancouver. We navigated our way through the dirty city to Edna house, appropriately named by another ex Edmontonian Steve. I was excited to see everyone but upon arrival we quickly realized that nobody was home. So we dropped off our bags (and Travis' precious cargo we so graciously colored from Edmonton) and went to meet up at a nearby food mart. Friends and watermelons!! Hugs and greeting and other shit. Time to go to Edna house and get the grand tour. Edna house is awesome. Danzig the cat is pretty awesome too, except when he farts on me. Its beautiful outside. So lets go play frisbee and fly some kites. Sweet connections were made and apparently it was shirtless o'clock according to Steve's watch so we all got a healthy tan. Matt and Durell sulked in the van, hesitant to partake in the fun time. Actually, I don't know if they were sulking. They just didn't come. Making them 'enemies of fun'. However, fun time was over. Time to play a show. We made our way to the APC (anti poverty committee). Parking in downtown Vancouver is a hellish nightmare. A brutal medieval woodcut of full lots, bad neighborhoods, sketchy bums and junkies, angry careless drivers and break ins. But other than that Vancouver rules. War hero didn't make it. Damages is playing tonight which is awesome. I thought of something funny. Vancouver kids at the show were not really moving for any of the bands songs, thats because Vancouver kids are just Edmonton kids with one good move in them, get it?? I'm pretty sour about all my friends moving away. Our set was one problem after another. My sampler died, Matt's guitar input was sketchy resulting in a guitar that sounded like shit. Whatever. Not every show is a gem. Noogz came out, which was nice to see his sweet face. Woolworm would have been sweet to see also maybe next time. Todd and I were Gsts human microphone stands. I made Reuben work to sing his lyrics. We took forever packing up as always and in the midst of organizing the van, Gsts had realized their van had been broken into. A police car promptly drove after them and informed them that they had caught the guy who had done it and most of their items would be returned. But not the condom in Mike's wallet. True story. Sketchy. Also sketchy, is Durell ditching us to hang out with strangers and get drunk. Strangers to us at least. We wished him a rape / murder suicide free evening. I found a dog dad mask. Perfect. We headed back to Edna and watched salad fingers videos on Steve's computer. Nightmares were sure to follow as we headed off to bed.

The sound of Danzig the cat getting into annoying kitten shenanigans plagued me as I drifted off to sleep.

July 17 2009

It is 6:44 AM. Two hours later than the expected departure date. Durell, with more pep then I can handle at this time in the morning, has already played an air guitar solo with his mouth 2 times. I can imagine thousands more to come so I threaten to write down every time he does one. He says he wont do one ever again. We'll see. Getting our shit in the van and gassing up took so long, but goodbye Edmonton hello interior British Colombia. There isn't much to do on the road if your touring mates are not in a talkative mood. When it gets too dark to read or if your shitty mp3. player runs out of batteries, one thing that I like to do is sit and reflect on all the times I've been on these roads Do you ever wish you could record your thoughts? If i could, then right about now my thoughts would be crying shitting and sleeping. What am I talking about. I'm already off to a bad start, in more ways than one. What I mean is I'm starting tour off with a freshly diagnosed throat infection. I hope it wont get in the way of having to scream like someone kicked my newborn baby in the ribs...but I'm sure it will. Right now we are on our way to Langley BC driving down the yellowhead. The only road in Canada. We all seem to be lost in our own little worlds. I'm staring at the road and the disappearing prairie fields. Listening to Todd struggle through an impossible nap. We reach the BC border at 11:30 mountain time. Fitting. Get it? Mountain time? We're surrounded by mountains higher than Durell. Its really really hot out. Certain parts of my anatomy feel like hot silly putty mashed into my thighs. Continuing towards Chilliwack, despite the viscous feeling in our pants, the plan is to pick up ol' Taylor Geddes along for the ride. The ride being two weeks in a van, a sausage van. The show tonight is at "the thrill house" and I think we're the opening band. Update. I'm totally wrong. In the midst of figuring out how to get to the thrill house, the venue changed locations several times. After about an hour of this, I was skeptical as to whether the show was going to happen or not. Luckily, Gsts! (formerly guests. Gsts is cooler or something) got a show set up in an Abbotsford basement. And now because of the flip floppiness of the shows location, Gsts and us were now the only bands playing. Awesome. We abducted Taylor and some large boxes containing his distro items, and headed off to Abbotsford to meet the Gsts fellers. Upon arrival we were greeted with some equipment to bring to the show. After a maze-like drive to a little house on the side of a dirty road, we unloaded, set up, and the show began... Gsts had changed a lot from the last time I had seen them, last year they were a 2 piece. This year they have 4 members and maintain a violent, quirky stage presence, which is very entertaining to watch. I'm concerned to be going on tour with these guys. The basement we played in was like a bomb shelter. Concrete everything. Actually, I have no idea what a bomb shelter looks like. But with the power of my imagination this is it. The perfect venue really. My initial fear of not being able to perform vocally vanished 3 seconds into the first song. The strep seemed to have made my vocals sound better and after strangling myself with the microphone cord, the set was done. After packing and mingling with the Gsts guys and some people in attendance at the house, we also said goodnight to Cory and Andrea, some friends from Edmonton newly recruited to Vancouver's "growing number of people i know". Taylor gave us instructions to Ruben's house where his parents would put us up for the night. We were greeted by the largest dog on the planet little did we know he was a pussy. First impressions are bullshit. Ruben's parents welcomed us in with a delicious looking breakfast spread consisting of sandwich building supplies and veggies. (Edit: it wasn't breakfast at all, I don't have an eraser to change what I wrote.) After chowing down and setting up sleep zones, we socialized into the night.

I passed out listening to the sounds of my new friends talking to my old friends.