friday - berkeley
elbert seemed more upset that we forgot our matching red mesh softball caps at home then the fact that his beautiful, yellow guitar was snatched out of pepito's car two days ago. nonetheless, the show at cloyne court was a glorious bon voyage party, as so many of our friends surprised us by coming out to wish us well; we played with our friends readyville and battleship; and a new dance was spontaneously created-- the macarena mosh pit. goodbye dear berkeley , we shall see you in ten days.

saturday - eureka
eureka is a funny northern california town of tweakers who fiercely separate and distance themselves from the notorious hippies of neighboring arcata. the distinction, however, seems heavily based on drug of choice rather than lifestyle. bocce ball with knulla roofs on samoa beach was a splendid afternoon diversion. the show was at the saffire rose , a fancy cafe in old town eureka.
JPG, a local white boy hip hopper with a touch of autism armed with keyboards galore opened. minutes into their second song, pepito leapt off of jj's kickdrum and snapped the leg off. oops. the lovely michelle cable (of panache fanzine) set up the show and let us invade her house after the show.

sunday - portland
superficially, tour life is: driving, napping, loading in, playing shows, and watching kendra drink dr. pepper. if we're lucky, we're playing an amazing house show with crazy kids jumping from the rafters. if we're unlucky, we are smashing our equipment up at some shitty dive bar to no one. its either the best twenty-five minutes of our life or the worst. ostensibly, a certain charm exists in the ritual experience of highs and lows that are left to the vagaries of chance. the true allure of tour, however, isn't the shows. its the camraderie in the collective decision to put life on hold in order to travel around the country with your friends-- a slumber party on wheels, if you will. ritchey from dear nora hosted our slumber party by letting us crash and use up all her hot water.

monday & tuesday - olympia
we showed up early in downtown olympia and made a bee-line for sylvester park. with nary a word and impessive expendiency, we set our shit up in front of the central gazebo. soon, a small gang of hippie punks gathered, and were in disbelief at our intention of plugging in and playing, "dude, no way!!! are you serious??? isn't this illegal???" we shrugged with cool, east bay nonchalance. of course, the joke was on us, when a bike cop waited until the last possible second to pedal by and shut us down. we spent the night at a local hotel getting liquored up, cutting hair, and watching VH1 until 5am. the show at le voyeur the next night was marked by an old man throwing flowers at us. knulla roofs tore it up for ten lucky kids.

wednesday - seattle
what’s nice about the northwest is how close together the cities are. the drives are short which leaves ample time to walk around and soak up the local geography. in seattle, we let gravity and the inertia of the hills take us to pike place market. we walked around the pier, smelled fresh fish, looked in the various tourist trap knick knack shops, and ate fresh peaches. we played at 2nd avenue pizza, a narrow little pizza joint with a hot stuffy room with high ceilings in the back for shows. seeing and playing with majority rule was awesome. there were so many kids everywhere that it almost felt like home. then a grindcore kid remarked to elbert, "you really remind me of crimpshrine. i used to love them, but i dont listen to that shit anymore." we stayed at justin's house, which seemed ripe for mtv-style drama, as eight other college kids live, study, and party under the same roof.

thursday - vancouver
pulling up to the rickety ALF house, we were greeted by a parked van proudly flying a black ramones flag. behind it, a dozen east van punks loitering on the front stairwell waved hello. inside the house, an 80’s poster of ALF hung reverently on the wall. the opening band wore ratty crimpshrine patches. we knew the show was going to kill, and kill it did: kids clapping; kids dogpiling; kids dancing; kids hanging on walls; kids climbing through 2nd story windows; and of course lots of broken equipment all around. vancouver bands: paper lanterns and fucked up kid are the second coming of screeching weasel and crimpshrine respectively. we snuck back across the border and passed out in seattle at 4am.

friday - corvallis
seven years ago, pepito spent an extraordinary summer of mayhem in the sleepy town of corvallis, oregon. today, birch still lives in the same house with the garden out front and the 8-bit nintendo that has dr. mario permanently affixed inside. birch and kelsey stole ingredients for a delicious vegan-style taco dinner. jeremy baked and brought a vegan chocolate cake to the show for pepito’s birthday. knulla roofs did a surprise rendition of “you and i.” after the show, birch led elbert and pepito to the secret fort he is fashioning thoereauian-style out of stolen plywood, 2x4s, and salvaged construction material. a shooting star bade us farewell, as we drove on the dark highway out of corvallis.

saturday - south lake tahoe
jj’s truck had no air conditioning, so it felt like we literally drove through the sun to make it to south lake tahoe. despite the stifling heat, tahoe punks clad in heavy leather and sporting large mohawks were out in full force by the time we arrived. we were playing with the mighty jewdriver and local punks officer down at casa blanca. kendra beat her hand black and blue on guest tamborine, and then pepito open-mouthed kissed elbert in a frenzied moment of punk rock lust. even with dual fans at full blast, casa blanca turned into a raging oven of kids tearing it up and slam dancing. cooling off in the parking lot after the show, we decided to indulge in the sin city night life of tahoe. hitting up a casino, a local tweaker helpfully informed us that, "if youre in tahoe, youre either totally drunk or totally high. preferably, both." afterwards, elisabeth let us stink up her house for the night.

sunday - davis
blame it on the desperate delirium that tour was almost over, or maybe it was the suffoctive heat, humidity, and stink of mick mucus’ house that compelled elbert to punctuate our last show by ceremoniously smashing his guitar to smithereens. all that was left was wood, duct tape, broken strings, and black paint chips. a very fitting end to a tremendous tour.