Kitten Paws & Lizard Claws

3/2 - Drive To Columbus

I get off work and Aaron and I grab the van. At first look, surely it will fit everything...it has to. Aaron never falters in reassuring that things will work. In his mind, they always will. It helps. We get to Aaron’s and start loading. It’s gonna be tight, but we do what we can. We arrive to get Peter and he’s got many items. How the hell is this gonna work.

“Did you use the stowaway yet?”

What the hell is that? He says nothing and starts opening a hidden compartment underneath the feet of the back seats. Woah. We load that up and sure enough, we’re golden. Off to pick up Gabe. I’m in the driver’s seat feeling the immense weight of a fuckload of gear and 3 people in the car and am skeptical this thing will get us around.

We get Gabe and start going to Columbus. Another human’s weight. Aaron can’t guess Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest until “2 Weeks” comes on, which is alright. We kill about an hour as I tell them what my day job really is.

“Isn’t it crazy that for the average user, credit card companies are just capitalizing on my money YOU ALREADY OWN?”

It’s a fucking dastardly-ass scheme.

We get 1.5 hours from Columbus and have enough gas to get home when Gabe says

“Are we gonna be stopping again?”

“No way! We have enough gas and it’s like 1am”

“Ahhh….ummmm I maaaay have tooooo ahhhh Urinate-oooo”

This becomes a theme. But the goofy and pleading delivery was too funny for me to not reward.

We arrive at the Hampton inn and the check-in person was like “y’just made it. Was about to be gone for a few hours.” We’re tired as fuck. We get to our room and fall asleep.

3/3 - To Ithaca

Tonight is our first show in Ithaca. I slept like shit. Peter woke up an hour early to fucking work out. We get a scrappy breakfast from the lobby and Aaron hands me a tea bag that says “I Love Lemon” on it.

“It’s a love letter.”

We get going. It’s icy and Ohio-y. Aaron is driving, which I’m glad for. Right as we get on the highway, Peter says

“Would anyone care for a gorp?”

That = grape.

We spend the ride trading the aux cable and me trying to sleep. We get to a patch of snow which makes me hella nervous but, again, Aaron doesn’t give a fuck. We stop in an upstate NY town that I forget the name of, but was classically upstate...one of those “main street” type towns. We get to a rest stop and this place was crazy...cracked stone floors and a grocery area in the back that had a lot of offerings, but seemingly just spilled out into the back storage/trash area, where there were relics of the distant past everywhere...cardboard cut outs, random furniture...separating the front and the back was an archway, and above it was an old “video rental” sign, but like all wooden and bulky, and dusty as fuck...It was like walking into an abandoned Chuck E. Cheese, or something. Super unsettling.

We arrive in Ithaca and it’s all twilighty and pale pink sky and all that. We hit Wegman’s quick for dinner and Gabe talks about how the prices have doubled since he used to work there during high school. Peter roams around trying to find something to eat, because he’s on Whole 30. Perfect timing!

We get to the venue and start loading in. My keyboard stand “breaks.” Duct tape. (I later learn that all I needed was an allen wrench). I have a lot of history in this area - life changing concerts, day trips, hikes, food, sad escapes, past loves. I change into my Dan Deacon sweater which feels fitting. I’m dazed with a lack of sleep. My friend from Binghamton comes with a whole crew, which is much appreciated. The room fills up for the openers, which are intriguing experimental solo projects. Some college friends show up last minute before we start. The set was solid, but we ran into some sound issues and had to cut a lot of songs. I think we did alright, and people dug it. The whole crowd was intently watching, and laughing at every slight banterous comment I made. It felt like they were legit waiting to hear me all week.

I note that one of the songs I play is about someone in the room, but I had yet to see her.

I go to sell merch. My college friends who I haven’t seen in 6 months - didn’t really get to relax with them, as we need to tear down shortly after, and not to mention it’s late and they gotta get to their place too. This ends up being what always happens - tour is work. There are not many free moments outside of the car.

Someone asks me to sign their CD, a friend reveals she’s been listening to my EP on repeat, and someone nervously compliments me and mentions the music video. Woah.

It’s time to tear down so we have to go down these narrow stairs with everything and load our van which is in an alley and has the neighboring bar employees yelling at us to leave. We can’t get the damn van packed, though. It’s being a bitch. We finally get it after much stress.

Peter and I split off to get to the place we’re staying, which is the house of someone I know who is not there. Thusly, we don’t know his roommates. We park semi far away and lug heavy shit to the door. Knock. Nothing. Call my friend. Nothing. I knock on the door of the lower apartment and get a helpful young dude, who says I should just go right in. So I do. There is a dude standing atop the stairs looking confused.

“Hey, I’m Jesse - Does Remanu live here?”

“Uh….”

Someone else comes by.

“Hey, um, hi, what the hell is this? Why are you knocking at 11 and just coming right into our house? We don’t know you? What are you doing?”

Tired as fuck, nervous, and already shaken up, I just start stumbling to explain myself before he cuts me off-

“OH I’M JUST KIDDING WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE GET ON UP HERE! MI CASA ES SU CASA”

Wow.

We get upstairs and start unloading when a tenant starts enthusiastically talking to me.

“I was at the show! It was so cool!! It seems like you have a great following!”

Nope - just had an alright crowd that Ithaca Underground is good at catering to. But I learn that the narrative spawned by things like this is as good as your image, whether or not the story’s there.

The house is classically Ithacan. “Free condoms” jar in the bathroom. Plants everywhere. Tribal woodworking on the walls. “Capitalism is a pyramid scheme” poster on the wall. Welcoming attitude.

As Peter and I lay on the air mattress, I say

“I’m glad this is your first experience here, because this house is literally an Ithaca museum.”

3/4 - Ithaca -> Syracuse

I wake up to the view of snow lightly falling, and it was unusual how fearful I became of it as it took new meaning for this trip where I am underprepared and need to travel hundreds of miles. This is obviously at odds with my initial delight and feelings of home - Tennessee certainly has weakened my capacity for snow and the cold - making me a creature I swore I’d never become.

I’m off to meet an old friend for brunch -

“Hi so I am house sitting as well as dog sitting and the heat is broken and the dog is shivering, so I can’t leave him here. But also it’s not really comfortable to be at this house because it’s cold. So why don’t I take the dog to my house and we can make breakfast? But I don’t have eggs. So how about you get eggs on the way? But also I don’t really have coffee. So maybe you should also get coffee on the way?”

This is exactly what happens.

I set out in my fucking boat shoes (glorified socks) in inches of snow and am slipping all the way down the front stairs of the mysterious house. I finally get my bearings and am greeted to the classic Ithaca - the same open minded and welcoming place that it never fails to be. A man snow blowing says good morning. Students mill about. I stop in the Green Star which is a fair trade sort of grocery store. I help a delivery man get his stock cart into the store. “Thank ye much, sir.” I get my coffee and local eggs. I arrive at my friend’s house. She pulls up in a car and leads out a tiny dog wrapped in a red sweater. Holy fuck.

We go upstairs and after undressing the dog he immediately curls up in the sunlight of the window.

“His name is Peabody.”

WHAT

We go to the kitchen to make pancakes and eggs and get to talking about basically what happened over the past 6 years and how we’ve both felt a lot of damage and successes and how different we are now.

“Why weren’t you at the show? I played a song about you.”

“Well. I was curled up with Peabody because it was so cold last night, and we were watching TV, and…I fell asleep. And then I woke up at 9pm being like “fuck, there’s no way I can make it now.”

The song is called “Asleep.”

“You can hold this over me for like 1.5 years, it’s warranted.”

The thing is I wrote a whole album about this person in 2012 and I spent that last 5 years trying to get her to listen to it, and she wouldn’t.

Breakfast is delish, and we reminisce a lot about what it was like dating each other long ago. It’s really something how unprepared and ignorant I was at the time, but this is something I already have severely grappled with. It’s really quite good to have such an uninhibited conversation with someone so key to your life/past. It’s like being able to revisit era-specific weaknesses and moments in a tactile way.

Peter comes to pick me up in the van. I ask if he wants to meet Peabody. He says yeah, but doesn’t like small dogs. Whatever…

She hugs me bye. Peter and I go to pick up Gabe.

“What’s the best way to Syracuse?”

“Through Cortland. It’s like a place where everybody’s aggressively trying to mate with each other.”

Me: “And they’re all judges.”

Peter: “And they all love tennis.”

“Yeah. It’s a city of court judges courting each other on tennis courts.”

We get to Syracuse and my college friends await me. We go to armory square and snack/drink. Our waitress is a girl I TA’d 3 years ago. Insane.

We go back to my friend Jay’s apartment, which is where I stayed during that whole Utica deal last september. It feels similar, which is awesome. We’re drinking beer and eating burritos and laughing really hard. It’s time to load in down the street, so we get going.

The room is small, but works, and the crowd is paying a lot of attention. Show goes really great, especially with Jay on back-up vocals. I step outside to hang with my college friends. My one friend who’s helped direct the art of most of my past albums all of a sudden realizes that I just played next door to The Westcott theater, where he and I saw Reptar, Rubblebucket, and most importantly - Dirty Projectors.

“Shit, this is the Westcott? It’s been here the whole time?”

He gets wrecked realizing that we’ve literally been sharing a wall with one of the most important spots of our friendship and artistic development. All of those concerts rocked our worlds.

Peter and Gabe split off to Jay’s, Aaron and I split off to his house. On the way over, we talk about how touring is a real test of teamwork, and every bullshit ‘training’ and ‘seminar’ in school and jobs has never offered a real application of those skills such as it has been.

3/5 - Sunday in Binghamton

Wake up to a good ol’ family breakfast at Aaron’s. Peter and Gabe join shortly after. We eat and decompress before heading down to Binghamton. Snowy and sunny, it feels Hella Home-y. We arrive in Binghamton and hell is it dreary/sad. Everything is dulled, everything is grey, and it feels like nobody's around. We catch up with Eddie, who is hosting the show at his house, which is actually a commune that holds classes, dinners, and is a general stayover for nomadic types that need it. He leads us to the loft above ihs garage where we will play...it’s really nice. Wall outlets all over the place, nice carpeting. We load in early so all we have to do is set up, night of.

I drop off Peter and Aaron at Cyber West to get work done - Gabe and I drive to Target to get a “Quickie Blank Blank?” and pizza at Mario’s, listening to rap on the way obviously. I ran into a family friend in Target. Talk to the new owner of Mario’s while eating real pizza...Nashville pizza...just no.

We grab some beer and the Cyber boys and get to Eddie’s and set up.

“Hey, if no one shows up, we can just chill with some wine.”

But people DO show up. 35 to be exact. 35 people came to this weird garage hippie loft to see us play on a depressing as icy Binghamton Sunday night while the DORMS ARE CLOSED. It felt like a weird judgment day, where various people from pockets of my past all congregated in agreement. I knew everyone, but most didn’t know each other. I actually made a ton of money on merch that night. I spent like 40 minutes talking to everyone before they cut away. Shortly after, a member of the collective (the house) comes up to the now empty room, and says

“Gentlemen.”

He procures a small white rod.

“The band spliff.”

We all look at each other. None of us, at this point, have been keeping up with smoking in our lives.

“I’m sorry dude, we’re all too nerdy and responsible to partake.”

“Seriously? Really? Even for the road?”

“Ah...I can’t keep it in the van, it’s a rental. I feel terrible man. We’re all too lame and nerdy. But I realize this is considered GOLD to many a band. Thank you so much.”

We were too fucking responsible to smoke weed on tour.

After the show Eddie shows us his surprisingly sophisticated mushroom farm, which is essentially falling apart as he explains it to us. But, nothing he can’t control, nothing he hasn’t seen before, and nothing he can’t patch up.

On the way out, everyone in the living room is warm. Eddie and I chat about his future plans and current evaluation of self as we lock the door to the loft. The band and I head to my former neighbor’s house to have a v comfy night of sleep.

3/6 - New Yolk

We get up and cut down to Manni’s, which is in the square of the neighborhood I grew up in. Fresh made donuts, EVERY day. We get a half dozen of all sorts of flavors and Gabe and Aaron and I split them all, savoring every detail as Peter drove and probably gritted his teeth knowing Whole 30 would keep him from this hometown DELIGHT.

We have a long conversation about respect, friendships, dating, and these 3 boys really bolster my self confidence and self-respect.

As we get closer to the city:

Peter: “Alright man. Start playing like, New York songs.”

??

Peter: “Like Empire State of Mind and Billy Joel and stuff.”

Peter: “Someone honked!! *HONKS* Hey fuck you!! ...I love this city.”

We get a perfect spot for load in. We all split off to see respective people. I eat edamame/avocado toast in an assuming brooklyn cafe, and drink an americano.

Jay, from Syracuse earlier, comes to meet me. We post up in one of his favorite taprooms in Bushwick. We catch up on lots of things, musical and life-wise. An old mutual friend and continued collaborator shows up-he’s been engineering the Modern Instincts songs. Revelry continues.

We make our way to a vegan diner and the conversations continue.

“Yeah, well really spot mic-ing a quartet, it’s more there for body and leveling purposes, but the overheads dominate that tone, really”

Jay’s gonna sing tonight again.

We start loading in and MUAH this venue is everything I dream of playing. The front bar is golden, ornate. The stage is fairly elevated, and the wall behind is plastered in clippings of ANY kind - news, or softcore porn. When the wall stops, an industrious black guard railing protects the open end of the stage. Skeeball machines, photo booth. The sound guy is so easy to work with, and so good.

The place starts packing, and soon enough I’m looking out to a huge room of people - we fucking DESTROYED that place. We play our last song - Thinking In English (an old one,) which is easily the peak of the set. Enormous cheer. The mains start playing change-over music, when we start to hear ‘BA-SIC PRIN-TER *clap, clap, clapclapclap’, and the sound guy lowers the main. A fucking encore. On our first tour.

We don’t have another song, and we need to give the time to Quail Turret. But damn, that was the best.

I spend the rest of the night loving all of my friends, selling merch. I settle up with everyone - the booker is nice as hell. The sound guy said we were of the top tier bands he’s seen in his 1.5 years working there. The door girl asks if we need a place to stay. Man, what a success.

Peter and I head to my friend’s house and we settle in to sleep on his floor. I count the money from the past 4 days and look through the pictures so far. Never felt so cozy on a couch before.

3/7 - Philly

Rainy in Brooklyn. Peter and I solve a puzzle of getting the van, going up and down 4 flights with different heavy things, and making sure the auto-locking door doesn’t fuck up our whole charade while loading.

We get the other boys and get a ways out of the city before stopping in one of those ‘all in one’ rest stops. Coffee and chapstick. We congregate at the front doors on our way out.

Peter: “This would be a good place to buy a watch.”

I turn my eyes to see a tiny glass case with your typical array of luxury brand watches. Armani, Rolex. I look at Peter. His face is totally normal.

Aaron and I have always done this thing, but it got exacerbated on this tour, where we would misread signs with liberal exaggeration on the syllables.

Mcdonalds, Subway, Sbarro.

“Look, this stop has MOME-DONSON, a SRABAWOONI, and a SUH-BARRR AR AR ARHHH AH...:”

We drive to Philly. I put on Swing Lo Magellan because it’s warming up. We talk about musicianship. We talk about musicianship every car ride, and it’s amazing how much it evolves day to day for me, because I learn so much every day.

We drop Aaron and Peter off to do work/meet up with family, while Gabe and I go to get Cheesesteaks. Gabe does NOT pull his pants down. We wander into a bar that I realize I tried to book to pee. We get cash, and cheesesteaks, and laugh. Then we get blindsided by an ice cream craving. So we go near Fishtown and get icecream.

And then we go to this record store which is hella sad. I go to the back, and it’s all dusty and yellow. Though, I do find a Kyle Fisher record which I thought was super weird. It was like, new, amidst all of the standard used-record leftovers you always find. It kinda made me sadder.

Some pretty good music is on, like this really tasteful blend of 70’s psych americana stuff, like that smoky Doors stuff or the more stoic Beatles moments like Norwegian Wood. I talked to guy at the desk, and he told me who it was, but I already forgot. But he had a lot of real things to say about it, and clearly cared a ton, which lightened it up for me.

Gabe and I step outside and I ask him if he was bummed out at all? Tour downtime felt really stale to me. You get to this city you barely know and feel incredibly small all of a sudden, and then I guess the massive drop in relative energy it causes can put the lowlights on display.

Gabe: “Not really, I dunno dude. You’re depressing me!”

Paraphrased, and he says it with a flimsiness - he’s perfect for keeping the tour light and funny.

We get to the venue and start to load in. Up some narrow ass stairs...get to the venue. Tiny, all wooden. Wooden everything. The sound guy is a BAID-ACE (badass). Extremely positive, efficient, helpful, quick. There’s nowhere to store gear in this place. We’re basically shoving all of this shit in this 1 x12 foot (no joke) space behind the DJ booth. Which is literally the worst case scenario for gear storage.

One artist is Skeleton Lipstick - a delirious electro boy. I talk to him and ask him if he likes Tobacco, whilst in my Tobacco shirt. He does love Tobacco. We reference interviews we’ve read.

Stage is tiny, but we fit alright, and I kinda liked the feel of it.

Sound guy - “I’ll letcha know when you’ve got two left!”

Oh yeah, the person we’re staying with - she’s the inspiration for one of my songs. She shows up as we play our first tune. We get to this part where we do a transition between two songs. After the second, sound guy lets us know we have just one left. I play the song about her to close it. The songs ends in a fully distorted 1 minute synth solo, then just cuts off.

“I wanted to let you know you had two, but you jumped right into your next one!” It’s okay, sound guy. You were awesome.

We load out, which sucks. I meet up with namesake girl, and our mutual friend. She doesn’t appear to know what to say, which is fair. If someone showed up to my town to blast a dramatic orchestral synth-ballad with my name as the chorus in my face, I wouldn’t know what to do, especially in front of my friends who might not know the whole story. We’re sleeping at her place later.

The final band plays, and Gabe and I drink our discounted PBRs. I get barely tipsy and he asks if I’m drunk. For the tour, probably the drunkest I’d been, which is ‘not that.’

The really dickish door guy comes up to settle with me. Gives me this nicely written breakdown, and the payout, which is honestly not so bad. But the production fee was mega high, mostly to include the ‘promoter.’ Promoter? The guy that made the FB event page? I’m thinking so. Hella side eye.

We get outta there and get to the place we’re staying. Namesake girl comes out to help us in. She lives above like, an ethnic gift shop, I believe. Maybe it was a tattoo parlor. I forget, but it was a kitschy place of business. And in a way, you had to like enter the business to get to the stairs that lead to her place.

We get up there and we’re all sitting around and visiting for a moment, which is nice. It hadn’t happened too often at our overnights yet, so it was cool to actually have a moment of hanging out. We tell stories. No one talks about the show.

The girls turn in upstairs, and the band and I are all laying down for bed now. At this point we started doing this thing. There’s this band we played with a long while back called Noelle Tannen and the Filthy No-Nos. At the time, I kept forgetting the latter half of the name, so I picked a random filler. Like Noelle Tannen and the Green Tigers, or something. So I brought it up, and we started doing it again, for like an hour. It devolved into this super weird place.

Noelle Tannen and the stupid idiot morons.

Noelle Tannen and a couple of chairs.

Noelle Tannen and that 5th pocket they advertise on jeans, that you’re like, where the hell is it? And then you realize it’s the little pocket made for keys or whatever INSIDE of the main right pocket

So like it’s Noelle Tannen but, you walk in and there’s a huge draft and you realize you forgot to wear socks, so you put some on and it’s a bit better.

3/8 D-Ceptive

We wake up. More Noelle Tannen for like an hour. We gather our shit, and shower. I neaten up the blankets and put a note on it

“Thanks so much for letting 4 weird boys stay. Let us know if we can ever help in Nashville. Good luck with flipping cigarettes and jet lag.”

Texts,

“I hope it was more good than weird to hear a song about you.”

“Definitely a first. But good”

We stop at this cafe which is surprisingly good. I feel my throat starting to get scratchy. We talk about Aldi. Also, prior, we went into an Aldi and were like what the fuck, EVERYTHING is a knock off...and the graphic design is SO close to the original.

We get the hell outta Philly. We get 30 minutes from DC when Gabe has to pee. We pull off. First gas station we go to has no bathroom. We got to the 7/11. No bathroom. Where the hell does anyone URINATE on this street, then? We go to the McDonald’s up the street. Gabe gets a full big mac combo. He’s also been driving. Aaron makes a joke so funny that I drop my keys in the McDonalds.

We go to a suburb north of DC, and it’s amazing how robust and corporate even this suburb feels. Still plenty of tall buildings. We catch up with one of Gabe’s best friends, who’s now living here. When he has to go, Gabe and I explore a bit while Peter and Aaron do work. Metallic silver ball installation art. We come across this brewery and get a pseudo dinner and beers. Spice Girls comes on...Gabe and I have our longest heart to heart yet.

Additionally, 3/8/2017 will be forever known as Ass Wednesday.

My throat is still scratchy and I’m getting mucusy. Fuck. I have 3 more days to sing.

We reconvene, I’m feeling like Philly again, except this one’s weirder. DC’s vibe is so strange. Philly felt like, at least dingy and like you could grab hold of some of it. DC just felt like, immovable. Impossible to influence.

We get to the venue which is this teensy cramped slab inside of this bustling strip. There’s a neon sign they don’t light at any point. More narrow ass stairs. We get to the top and it is tiny - stage is an alright size, though...it’s dirty as fuck, there’s stickers everywhere. And it’s DARK as hell. It’s hard to make out anything a few feet in front of you - like the merch for example. Not that anyone’s buying. The sound guy - I can barely understand what he’s saying. I get none of the information I need without my deliberate asking. Weird to me.

The opening band plays and they were dope as hell! And they liked us a lot too. At least we got them out of this night. I hope to stay in touch with them.

It’s clear no one’s really gonna show. I ended up drawing 6 people though, which is honestly a lot! And originally it was going to be 8, but two couldn’t make it. That’s a lot more than my Philly draw. It’s a shame that the night had to be such a dud, because I felt I pulled my weight.

Peter’s amp light wouldn’t turn on, my keyboard died towards the end of the set, and my throat was scratchy. We did all right. Tear down is a bitch because we can’t see anything.

The sound guy has to ask me to tell the sound guy he’s ready to cash out. Lotta self efficacy, here. I go up and he’s legitimately laying down on his back...for real, no one could be bothered.

$10!

We get to my friend’s where we’re staying...parking is a major bitch. Crowded as hale. It’s nice to see my friend again, and we talk about Dirty Projectors and Delicate Steve.

3/9 - Long Drive To Sanctuary

We get up early because my friend has to catch a bus. We gather our shit and are all carrying respective piles of that shit down a block and a half to the van...7 hour drive ahead of us. My only stipulation is that we listen to Bitte Orca, because it’s sunnier than when I put on Swing Lo Magellan. To me that’s obviously how it goes.

As we exit DC, I see it in this totally different light...Regal. Robust. Shining, golden! Ornate. It’s all cramped, and there’s all this architecture, and all these embassies all lined up and neighboring each other, flags everywhere...as we leave, we cross an enormous white bridge, passing elegant statues. It was quite the changeup.

We stop at a Wegman’s in Woodbrige, which is contained in this shopping center, which felt so odd...sterile...like the buildings were just a little too big, and too clean - too separated from humanity. And the way the sun shone on everything, it was like a page from one of those I Spy books. This is something I think about all the fucking time and severely colors my mind, so the I Spy thing makes a ton of sense to me. Would love to know if you get what I mean, here.

We get going to Charlotte, and yes, put on Bitte Orca - we also listen to a ton of Flying Lotus, the new Thundercat, and Hiatus Coyote.

We arrive at my parent’s town house, which is in a development. We sit on the couches as a golden sunlight peers through the main window, and I think we all felt pretty tranquil.

We FEAST at Mario’s.

We get to the venue, which is definitely the diviest one yet. It’s just a scant bar with some rugs in the corner and a PA. Hella broken tiles outside the bathroom.

The opener cancels 15 minutes after he was supposed to show. Yeah. Quail Turret’s filling in.

The second band plays, I booked them because I was really diggin their album. They brought a handful of people that stood right around the perimeter of their setup and lightly head-nodded, which I thought was neat. They were good too.

We played to a bunch of my family, which is always weird. I cut the song Ironface out because I thought it would be too slow/emotional for them. E-Slow-Tional.

Door girl pays out really well! And the sound guy takes a new excitement when he says “Hey guys, definitely hit us up if you want to do it again!”

...we probs won’t

3/10 - End

We stir awake. Dad makes huge breakfast...so good. We hang out with my fam a bit, and I feel like I’m too listless to connect. It’s been a theme lately, but I guess I’ve always kind of been like that, too.

We hit Mario’s before we head to Hendersonville to get like, 3 pizzas, a salad, espressos and San Pellegrinos to go. Yeah. My dad gives us all a tour of the massive kitchen. I step out of the back door for a sec while the other guys are checking it out. I’m in like the trash room outside basically, which has an open ceiling...sun is leaking in over the edges. Thing about driving and sleeping in close quarters with 3 dudes all the time is that you don’t realize that you’ve literally had no alone time for days and days.

We get going to Hendersonville.

“What kind of heavy shit do you like?”

I put on Treats by Sleigh Bells.

We get to Hendersonville, and it’s this adorable little one road mountain town. We stop in this music store, which Peter gets willingly stuck in as he talks guitars with the old dudes. Aaron and Gabe and I come across a timbale which was hilarious to us for reasons too stupid and long to explain.

We find the coffee place we’re playing in, and it’s really cool. The point person let us know the deal and pretty much said it was gonna be dead tonight, but we could do whatever we want and call it a night an hour early.

We set up, which takes a while

“Woah...you guys have a lot of gear.”

The thing about this show is that I told the booker we were like a full out band, and he was all -yeah yeah, do you want this show or not?

We set up and it is EMPTY. I drink a free white russian and eventually a high end wine. We end up just chilling and drinking fancy teas/coffees/alcohol as per show payment. We play all of the BP songs either like half as loud or half as fast...it was pretty trippy to try out.

“Man, I’m sorry we didn’t bring anyone out. What did you guys agree on for payment over the email?”

I tell him.

“Oh….”

“What, is that way too high?”

“No, way too low…”

He pays us extra, and buys a tank top. We end up making more than philly and DC combined. How ironic that this little coffee shop in the middle of nowhere is the place that believes it’s up to THEM to bring out people...any other venue proper is pretty dickishly strict about saying “the only reason people come is if you bring people out, so all promotion is on you.” Lot of merit to the ideology, and also a lot of bullshit...if you own a venue, it’s also up to you to make sure you get some business, if you want to stay open.

We have a long drive through the night to get to Nashville, and Peter asks me what’s next for BP. So we talk about it for like 1.5 hours and it’s super energizing, and amazing how new my perspective has become on music in the past week.

I don’t think an illustrious ending is needed here. Tired and agitated, we rush the fuck home and drop everyone off.

When your voice is not it Rip out the chords No band aid When your voice is not it Rip out the chords No band aid When your voice is not it rip out the chords

n o  ba n d aid Mandy gave me headphones Comfort in fog Comfort in unknown Easy to kill self Easy to fulfill self Sacred Mandy gave me headphones Bent on one ear Mandy gave me headphones I have headphones now

We get to the bar at damned 6 pm. We were redeeming a prize we had won for frequenting the place, essentially. We had to get there early enough that we wouldn’t infringe upon business, and so we could have the place to ourselves, sort of. That provision didn’t need to be so enforced, I figured. Maybe they didn’t, maybe that was our own choice, but we were gonna stay through the night either way.

It’s not jarring, but it is odd to see one of your favorite night-time places in the sunlight. When the sun set, I didn’t feel the normal cozy familiarity I would otherwise feel. It almost always happens to me. Sunsets are interesting in that they are always treats. If you have never experienced a sunset somewhere before, that’s something to look forward to. That’s something you always have. Usually it offers a warmth, and a lull. It was odd to see that it hadn’t tonight.

There’s about 15 of us. We’re a tight bunch. Perhaps a bit incestuous at times. The night comes on and I don’t feel tired, but pacing myself is key. The usual donning of superiority falls over us all - we’re here every Saturday. It’s ours. Anything can happen, and it’s our turf. I’m wearing a fucking pink shirt. It looks good enough on me, but looking back I always feel like that was such a fruity dumb choice. The night of I was excited about it though. I thought it might have good luck or something. I found it in NYC while on spring break and that was my first time wearing it. I dunno. I brought my coat anyway and it wasn’t even cold out. I’m constantly doing that.

This usual sort of girl shows up - she’s no stranger to a few of us (...) but she’d never been properly introduced to most of us. So, it was one of those weird things where half of us hear stories and half of us talk to her and half of us dunno her at all. But she’s cute. And I’m kinda sort of having a spell of inferiority because she’s like 5’9 and was with my friend once. And I’ve always been lingering on the periphery with my dumbass shirts and my meager height. But I could charm the hell out of her, I’d bet. I keep swinging by her table like we’d known each other for ever. “Hey hey let me know if you need to cheat off of us - I know you guys are always in like 17th place.” It’s trivia night.

We’re getting drunk enough I think. I keep swinging around her table. See other people. People trickle in and tight hugs occur. I think this girl that’s always being playful but is kinda just a 4.0 GPA girl that struggles to make her party animal nature known was texting me about trivia even though she was in the room. It mighta been a different time than this one, but either way.  And when i’d go to hand in answers I’d have to like sidle up to her and she’d be all “ooh heeyy” but it’s always fake as fuck and she’s 5’7, for that matter. But I think she kept the joke up and even kissed me on the cheek once. I hate how easily I love that sort of thing. It barely matters who is affectionate, sometimes.

Anyway it’s been hours at this point. I think trivia ended. It’s interesting how time can wear on a time out with friends. We’re ironclad, tight as hell, but it’s almost like those extra 3 hours we tacked on the night have started to wear on the initial excitement and glue, so to speak. The alcohol didn’t bond us tighter than the night was weakening us. Or maybe I just felt isolated. Or maybe I failed to heed the cue from an empty sunset.

Anyway the tall girl from earlier is heading out. And my drunk friend tells me to go get her. He’s drunk but I hear so much urgency and care in his voice. I bet tomorrow he’ll say he was probably just fucking around, but it’s all always valid.

“Hey, why’re you heading out so early?”

“I think I wasn’t even supposed to come out. I’ve been out too long, I think. It’s just getting embarrassing.”

“What? Well, you should stay, we’re all having fun.”

“Nah, I gotta go.”

We like really badly hugged and she left. The fuck. I totally didn’t get the embarrassing thing, and then I realized she probably feels weird that she and my friend had a one night stand and she wasn’t over it. He totally was. It kind of sucks how things can be so one sided. Maybe she really liked him.

I guess my friends all started dancing together, and by that I just mean like be around each other under the music and get pretty riled up when choice tracks came up. Thinking back I think mostly I used to lean on something near our friends with one or two other people and just get drunk. And talk loudly over everything. Until girls came in, or something, and then maybe you follow them around bars (at their request).

This little girl that I kinda met once way back at the dining hall came in. She was so joyous and carelessly cheerful. She immediately suggest we dance together. So we did. I was really surprised. Goddamned “My Neck” comes on and I’m such a drunkard at this point I’m yelling out the lyrics, in the way me and my friends do which is pretty exaggerated. Looking back I think I realized why the dancing ended and I could never find her again. It was because I was like probably stupidly screaming the lyrics in her face instead of just trying to dance. She was good at dancing too. God, it’s stupid to think about. I suppose it’s comedy. But I think I have a hard time laughing at myself. I think I’d rather put myself down in comic moments than be lighthearted.

I think a lot of my friends dissipated at this point, except for one or two dudes. The guy that’s left is a newer friend, but we’re tight. He’s this classic as hell dude who just likes to sit around and get drunk and talk about offshoots of things and literature and movies. And talk about like the “what if” scenarios of people who we don’t know or like old dudes we see in passing. But he’s kind of just bumming around a table.

“That girl was cute dude, you have to find her again.”

I couldn’t. And I don’t know where my friends went. I guess I tried to look for them at another bar. But I was really hungry for affection now. I felt like I had to kiss someone tonight. It just had to happen. My drunk veil kind of made it the only thing that mattered to me all of a sudden. On my way into the next bar, this girl I know is walking past. She’s small in a way that’s similar to the last girl.

“Hey. Are you going in here?”

“…I am now.”

So we go in and promptly go upstairs. And we start dancing. But she’s all at a distance and just being pretty aloof. And evidently, she ditched everyone she was with, so now maybe she feels a little off. I think she kind of just said she was leaving and waded off.

I’m not even joking - all of a sudden, before I could even think if I was gonna get a drink or leave - this girl I see in passing all the time shows up. And immediately we look at each other excitedly, not believing we’re seeing each other.

We hug, hug turns into dance, dance turns into foreheads touching. Her eyes are totally closed, and she’s smirking. But then she backs off,

“Jesse, I can’t do this, I gotta go to my friends.”

“I gotcha.”

I say it like I damned bumped into her in the hall or something, like “oh of course,” or like business as usual. It was really weird. But really disappointing. I remember she was wearing red, and her dress or whatever kinda had this interwoven texture. And she was pretty warm to the touch. I don’t know. It’s interesting that that stuck out to me about her. I think I tried to go back to the original bar, because I still had my hand stamp. I just wandered in past this huge line. No issue. This is my turf.

None of my friends are here anymore. I’m starting to feel really disappointed and lost. And I know it’s not worth finding anyone. I felt like just bumming around, now. I just felt like I had to be stuck out here for a while. Maybe something would happen. I was so addicted to this thought of going home with someone, it barely mattered who. I don’t know. I was having such an unsuccessful year in that regard. It felt like college was slipping away and every night had to be something nuts until I left. Because I’d never get it again.

I wandered into the second bar again, but this time, I went straight for the back patio and sat on a bench. I just sat on a fucking bench alone surrounded by a roving crowd. It’s really strange to do that especially when you probably know a lot of the people around you. I must’ve sat there for 10 minutes doing nothing, just trying to feel sad.

I wanted a smoke. Feeling sad always makes me want to smoke. I had none. I pretend I don’t smoke but really I just bum them regular than most smokers buy them. I saw this guy I met at a party two summers ago who I like never say hi to.

“Hey man, what’s going on?” We exchange obligatory pleasantries for like 4 sentences. And then I must’ve gotten such a pathetic hopeful glimmer in my eye. But smokers know the deal. Before I even started asking he flipped open his pack. Damned American Spirits, my favorite.

I stayed to talk to him because it’s kinda rude to bum and ditch. I barely knew the kid so i guess I got to know him. He’s my height but can grow a bushy fucking beard. We got along alright but he was pretty boring I think. I ashed it halfway because they last longer than usual cigarettes and I figured I theoretically have a lot of night ahead of me. I run into some high school friends. Super weird. Actually, I guess I run into them more than many other people from my school.

“Hey, how are you?”

“Not great.”

“Why?”

“‘Cause his brother died.”

He’s talking about someone who’s not there, but who I knew. And I remember seeing the article. I really wasn’t prepared to talk about it, but we did. For kind of too long.

I ran into my resident, and she had her brother with her, who was also into music. I asked him if he liked Incubus and he gave me this damned near 2.5 minute answer along the lines of “Eh like I don’t love their literal content but I totally get and like the approach and and…” I was just ready to leave really.

I walk halfway through the bar to the front and find my neighbor. She’s very levelheaded and normal and nice, and just kind of says hey and doesn’t put too much energy on me. She asked me if I wanted a ride home tonight. But then my phone buzzes, and it’s my friend who just texted

dillingers

That’s the name of the bar.

“No, I’m good. But thanks. I’ll see you really soon.”

I went upstairs, and there was my friend.

“We’re trying to have a threesome. I did coke.”

I really didn’t know what that even met. Did you text me because you thought I was a candidate for this? Or did you text everyone. Why was this the first thing you said to me? Am I supposed to now ask into it? Am i supposed to follow you around and see if you decide to choose me? Also I’m not sure if this is even what i want at the moment and if I have this confidence. The coke admission also just pushed me off kilter.

Either way, she introduces me to her friend, who’s the other prospective member of this endeavor, evidently. And she’s authentically pretty. And we’re all getting along. And it’s like this girl I just met knows this thing might happen. Pretty sure I got a beer. My friend is right in front of me all of a sudden, and we’re hugging tightly and appreciating each other. And then our foreheads are touching. And then our lips pressed together. And then 4 more times. But there’s such a clear apprehension all over the place. But then we just stared into each others eyes forever. I remember the scene perfectly too. I had these blaring lights in my right eye and harsh darkness in my left. There were lots of people, but they were like 15 feet away and kinda milling about, away from us.

“It’s time to get outta here. Bathroom first.”

I follow them downstairs to the bathrooms, and wait for them in this big open space. The new girl doesn’t go in yet.

“So you’re also just one of those engineers that defies everything and is super gorgeous?”

She smiles. Don’t remember if she answered anything. Can’t even remember how many sentences we even exchanged. I might have said only that. And then she went into the bathroom.

They both come out, and we all go upstairs. The new girl kinda goes off ahead, and I’m looking at my friend now.

“So. Am I walking you home.”

“…”

“Being an adult sucks, Jesse”

“What?”

“Get home safe.”

“Are you positive?”

“Just get home safe, Jesse.”

She just fucking turns around and leaves. I was so sure. I was so sure this had taken a new shade. I feel pretty much devastated. It’s kind of hard to explain how I felt about this girl, but we kept up a lot, and had been through a lot, and it’s not like thoughts weren’t had on either side, and that there wasn’t a reason for all of what happened. And then she just damned left.

The truth is, it just wasn’t a wise idea. There was a lot at risk. But I didn’t care at all at that moment. I had one thing to do that night.

I just stride the hell out of that bar and start speed walking. I can feel so much tension rising up. I’m just gonna go home. I’m just gonna go.

I get to the bridge when I stick my hand in my pocket and find the half done cig. I pulled it out slowly and sort of admired it for a second. It felt so sacred. It felt like all I had. My hand was smelly just from sticking it in my pocket. It was ranking up my whole pocket. An ashed cigarette emanates a scent, fyi.

I’m in a fucking pink shirt. I see this guy walking down the bridge and I think about how people ask me for lights and I don’t have them but I have this sort of necessary feeling of danger whenever it happens. And I thought about how I couldn’t possibly invoke that kind of hostility being that I’m 5’5 in a damned pink shirt. And this guy looked pretty friendly, albeit a little off. But he had on funky clothes. He looked artsy.

“Hey, do you have a light?”

“Yeah man.”

I light it.

“Man, thanks so much.”

“No problem.”

I really slowed my roll at that point. I just looked at my feet for the whole walk. And I remember imagining how pathetic and sad I looked from a distance. And like, remembering how  sulked over I was, and that my hands were damned near my knees, and I was mindful of not burning my jeans because I was holding my cigarette all weird near my leg as a result. What a sad state of affairs. Being careful not to burn yourself because you’re sulking so bad that you can’t even bring yourself to stand up straight. i just audibly sobbed the whole walk home. I totally remember the orange light of the streetlamp and me just looking at my stupid feet and being so close to crying. I hadn’t cried for years. I was so amazed I still wasn’t.

I passed an abandoned, broken down retirement home. What the fuck’s worse than that.

I didn’t pass a single person.

I finished the cigarette. I got to my friends’ house where I was to stay, but I didn’t even want to figure that out. I didn’t know if they were inside or still out, but I was in a shitty state and didn’t want to see anyone. I didn’t want to see if the door was open, didn’t want to face who was inside, and definitely didn’t want to call anyone to see if I could get in if it was locked.

9/2, 3, 4

When on a trip that is at least partially for business, the context of an airport changes. You feel more dominant. It’s easy for an airport to dominate you, and it’s no surprise why. It’s oppressively corporate, trademarked, mongering, and crowded. When it feels more like you’re using the airport instead of vice versa, you get a little kick out of it. This being said, this trip was much more pleasure than business.

A singular other person can help condense 5 hours of traveling into an easy task. Ya gotta stop at the shitty sectioned off McDonalds inside of the rest stop at a weird hour, every time. Fuck all the health shit when it comes to those moments. They will always have their own potency. My good friend is underspoken, even after 6 months of absence.

We and a mass of others have a house to ourselves in the middle of the forest. Vice-based vacations are interesting in that living largely comes out of erasing, smoothing over, moving quickly and moving slowly. It is hard to extract all that should be extracted individually with such a big group, under the aforementioned circumstances no less. It is hard to be away from the ones you love for half a year and then try to get everything you need out of a 3 day getaway.

9/5

Goodbyes en masse are not hard. It’s because it forces one to dilute their passion. This is not a good thing. I ended up saying goodbye a lot more after this particular session. Sometimes, I said goodbye to the same person several times over the course of the week to come. Half of us end up in a diner, while others go home, perhaps not to be seen by me for a year. This is what I mean. The diner feels purgatorial, which sucks, because it’s the last time I will see most of my best friends for a long time. It should feel momentous. We are all hazy from a weekend of indulging too much. It makes us not present.

I get a breath of a more proper New York, with streets and trees, on the balcony outside the diner alone before everyone else pays their bill. We all say bye in the parking lot, and the car that I will ride in for the next week is condensed to myself and my best friend, who’s agreed to make a duo adventure out of the week ahead.

Pale sunlight always destroys me. I don’t know what it is. It indicates the dawn of fall, and it usually is a bit colder. To me it does not indicate fun outdoors. It’s always pensive and potential. And nostalgic. I’ll get to that bit too.

That night I meet some of my friend’s work crowd over a board game. The concept of social acclimation between humans can be quite humorous, especially when meeting brand new, semi meek types alongside a person that you are fervently and outwardly comfortable with. My eyes wander when another girl wanders the room, not associating with us. What’s ever the point? Girls are ephemeral. Most girls you feel that way about - you’ll never see again. Why get wrapped up. Why get spiked. Now I realize it’s just biology. Kinda emphasizes further how hard it is.

9/6

New York City is always a sort of chore. An Italian deli near the train station underscores the state we’re in. I feel a little classic wave fall over me. Then we get on the train.

A fulfilling conversation, which without fail, stirs my nostalgic tendency. A real pick up from the balcony feels from earlier. Ha. Standing outside the diner for a couple minutes becomes a highlight of the trip. Insane. Classic. The city is grey, everything’s damned grey, and the weather seems way less important this time. I am a hard boiled egg. Our friend’s apartment is clinical (pun intended, he is studying to be a dentist), stark and cramped. I imagine a life that is temporally pinned, transitory, temporary, and lacking breath. There’s a 40 x 40 astroturf plot outside. Brick everywhere else. Breathe in.

A nice text. A tiny glimpse of home and the future. Don’t worry, nostalgia looms.

We recover a few people from the weekend, highlighting that my previous goodbyes were not that important. Good, good. We remain cramped and rushed in our travels for beer and food. Someone complains about things not logistical but still petty. I would prefer it this way, if complaints need be uttered. The restaurant is oddly fitting for the group and what we’d gotten into in years past. Only I will understand that sentence, really.

Walk forever. Sometimes I feel like I travel just to travel. I travel to drive more, walk more, fly more. It’s ironic. We’re getting so fucking duped, in a lot of ways. But that’s why living presently trumps any duping that could occur. In jail? Live presently. Thumbs up ‘moji.

A bar-arcade is more or less the coalescing of my material being. Order the wrong beer. Whatever. Obsessed with Gal. My friends are lingering. It’s almost like we’re still hazy from days ago. Two of them leave and it feels about right. One reveals he is traveling to my show Saturday. Crazy. I will see him again, goodbye becomes less important again. But I still say bye for the second time.

We play a the same board game from before, and I win quickly. We say goodnight and goodbye to our dentist friend.

9/7

We awake hazy and remain hazy. What the fuck. The cosmos is really against us this trip, because living presently is very difficult. It doesn’t help that the theme thus far are the ephemerality of time spent with loved ones. Non-physical antagonist. The only antagonists for the privileged are non-physical.

A cutesy grocery store. Local and ethical etc etc. Lovely. Haze remains. But it is hike time. Our hike is vicious and beautiful. The variety of topography under a perfect sun is exhilarating. It’s also something to finally get to the top of something, look over it all, and know that you’ve ascended so far upward all on your own. Something we needed after days of relaxation and, haziness. A worthy antidote.

9/8

We are barreling to my hometown and I feel once again like all effort to reclaim my former presence need be in place for every move made. Go to the old places. See the old people. Get people excited. Make it happen.

Very, very few people are still worth a damn to me here. I see them. We have great conversations. I feel loved. I need to head to our old bar. I gain evidence that a few beautiful people I used to see in passing, yet never knew, are still here. People I developed a distant obsession with, but never associated with. People I still kept tabs on, that never knew me. It feels so important and ripe, but moreover, I feel as unfit as ever. The setting washes over me and totems in the form of familiar faces juice up the suspense. Something needs to be done about this. I can’t just leave without something.

We are staying with our two friends who still attend the college and went to the house the weekend prior. Once again, our goodbyes from before are nullified. This will merely make these new goodbyes harder.

The bar features known characters who are excited to see me. I look around at all of the youth and am jealous. Painfully. A handful of people I didn’t expect to see show up, and we associate more than I’d figure. I for once, feel smaller than my hometown. Relatively, I am nothing here. Shows you how important humans are to a landscape. They provide the law, the love, the energy. This was exactly what was spoken of on the ride up, while I embarrassingly tried to stoically let my upcoming presence be known digitally to choice members. Maybe it will catch the eye of someone who gives a shit, and who will associate with me, and inject me with their youth and the spirit of the place really fast. I text a specific person as a material test. They see me as irrelevant. I didn’t really know her either. I hate getting older. It makes all of this impossible, and it makes all of those efforts harder and more embarrassing and more irrelevant.

Regardless, I get what I want in an unlikely turn of events that will not be explained. I also realize ‘what I want’ is not defined. That’s alright. It was mediocre. This is what reality is. It’s not perfect rekindlings and new sparks. It’s tired, old, lukewarm. I am 24. I’m not in college anymore.

9/9

I wake up in someone’s bed, painfully underslept. It is outstandingly overcast. I am left to bloom in a new coffee shop – it was not here when I lived here. I watch people come in with faces I know from my college years whose personalities I don’t. People that I’d seen in passing 3 years ago. They pass by the window. Freshmen I’d use to see that now live in apartments downtown. Really it’s a continued taunt of my pathetic need to dig my hooks into someone that can make me feel younger, and installed in my hometown for this one day. I message more people who give no shits. I am so desperate. I am jealous. I do a crossword for 2.5 hours. I suck at those.

We go to our ritualistic diner where our friend who still attends and his girlfriend and her friend meet us. Her friend is pleasant and cordial and cute and makes eye contact when she speaks. And she speaks a lot, and is curious, and gives good hugs. It gives me hope, in a way, for all of my previous anxieties. There’s no real causation or correlation between these two events. I just found her comforting.

We say bye to our friend and go to his house without him, so we can shower and change before our next location. When dropping him off on campus, I see more people I know, one of which I was able to interact with. The other person I saw was just a continued taunt. Everyone is so beautiful.

We get to the house and are lackadaisical. The overcast persists, and it’s bumming me out. It is a distinctive feature of this city, and people all over the state know it. It is the first time it is depressing to me. I am alone in a big dated house far off from campus in my home town, and this’ll be the last college-like moment I’ll have, realistically. Brushed off to the side like a crum, after what feels like defeat, but was truly a socially fulfilling 24 hours. Funny how expectation does that to you.

We get in the car and barrel to our next city. We are underslept. I sense my friend is getting tired of the trip, as we are approaching the end. Do not get me wrong, there is no shortage of laughter and our impressive sense of comfort and resilience to each other reigns supreme.

We arrive at my friend’s place - a former bandmate and current collaborator. We walk through his neighborhood. It is a welcome change but I can’t shake the weirdness from before. I am tired, self-conscious and hot. We walk to a store to fill up a growler. Eat a huge burrito. That was good. Upon return we have an impromptu party in his small apartment, which becomes quaint, dim, and pleasant as the night moves forward. It’s almost as if all the artificial light turned natural as we had more wine/beer in us and more conversations were had. Things feel more appropriate. Lots of new people are met, two of which end up coming to my show. Our friend from the city earlier, and the vacation house, flies in to this city. He shows up at the house too.

9/10

We get a shitty breakfast at the diner down the street. The car is loaded and we are off to Utica, where I am to play my show. The car ride is a stretch of road I was on the first day, from when I traveled to the vacation house with my underspoken friend. How fitting. Upon arrival, the weather is unclear. It’s hot when the sun is out and cold when the clouds are out, and when the clouds are out, it looks like impending rain. The changes happen frequently. Our show is outdoors so this is troublesome.

Downtown is dingy, but there are some quaint and impressive efforts to vitalize the area, which is starting to work, in my opinion. The record shop is stuffy, tiny, musty and cramped. I like it. Our friend buys an obscure record in honor of his friend’s dad. He surprises once again.

People I know slowly enter the city to see me play, which is unbelievable. My first fan ever shows up, because it’s technically his hometown. He is outstandingly pleasant and we got a lot covered that needed to be covered. He is a great kid. I want him to succeed with his own weird music. We really connect on that.

It is tense waiting to play, it is unsure how it will sound, and I can feel the nerves turning my attention into a blur. A good chunk of my extended family shows up, about 10 of them. Wild. They are unshakably supportive and this is not to forget. They are annoying and loud and drunk, and there’s nothing I can do. I can tell my friend, who’s driven all this time, is ready to be done with the trip, which at this point has been 8 days long. He is to return home after this.

It’s my turn to play. I haven’t practiced in 10 days because of this trip, and my set length is extended. I tack on three songs I haven’t practiced in longer than 10 days. My uncertainty, lack of a monitor, and guitar amp blaring in my ear make it so that I don’t know if I’m sounding good or shit. The set washes right by me, it felt like I didn’t even play it. I wasn’t in the zone. Everyone in attendance says it sounded great. That’s good. It’s funny. I guess being a performer truly means this, in a way. It’s not for my enjoyment, it’s for the audience. I trudged through the difficult set up and put on a good show (apparently). I learned a lot about musicianship.

The owner of the label I’m releasing on is present. The owner is an old friend and unwaveringly friendly and accommodating. It’s too much. It was a lovely afternoon.

My uncle slips me some money. The label owner slips me some money. Surprisingly, I almost profit on this trip. My picture is in the local paper and my face is on the local news.

I say goodbye to my family, and several of my friends, all at once. It is painful. I say goodbye to the friend who joined me all along this adventure. It’s really hard.

My friend who traveled up and is hosting me that night back in my hometown is ready to go. We watch the last band, who is flooring. I hug the singer. I tell him I’ll accomodate him for a Nashville show. later on, if he wants. We get into the car and literally ride off into the sunset. I am back at my hometown, without any college context, this time. I am in an established house in the suburbs, where my friend and his husband have full time, full income jobs. We go to Wegmans to get craft beer. We spend the night watching Youtube videos and playing DDR. I feel the same pangs of before, where I need to recover the feeling of my hometown. It is dulled but in a way worse, because now I am in my town, but outside of the college sphere, so it’s extra taunting.

9/11

I wake up and it’s sunny in my hometown, and classically, it’s pale sunlight. It’s not hot out. Zero humidity. I am ready to go back to Nashville. My friend I stayed with puts a lot of worth in me and it’s not to be glossed over. He says a lot of things on the ride to the airport, but I am not in the mood to talk and I feel bad.

The airport is tiny and empty. It’s my first time flying out of here. It’s really quite sad. Security is on lunch break. I stand by a pillar that is decorated with my college’s logo and features faces that I figured I might recognize, but didn’t. I lean against it. I feel like it’s my last moment to extract any youth out of this place. It doesn’t work. It feels like it’s gone away more. When I look around the musty, empty airport, I only feel older. When security opens, I go through in literally 1.5 minutes. It was absolutely amazing.

I walk to my gate and the massive glass window wall has more pale sunlight. I am craving a write. I get on the plane and it delays on the runway for an hour. I text people from Nashville. It feels a little more like I’m not hung up anymore.

I layover in NJ. I take care of a bunch of chores. And now, I’m way up in the sky in a plane, finishing up this entry. When I got onto my first plane, I clearly said in my head that I can’t go back home anymore. It makes me too sad, and in too weird of a way. Too existential of a way. It’s too taunting. I’m too old for it and there’s nothing to safely be done to reconcile it. I’ve moved 1000 miles away and maybe that’s the only way to keep growing. I can get so damned nostalgic, it’s almost painful. It’s terrible. There are so many faces and people I feel I need to reclaim, or meet, and there’s simply no way to do it. Going back just makes it harder to face. I have an exercise that is probably cognitively healthy but emotionally unhealthy called The Time Machine Game. I started it a year ago when I first moved to Nashville, because I felt essentially the same pangs, and a magnetism to stay back in my town, where everything was mine. You leapfrog off of a potent memory to other memories in order to reclaim an entire section of time in your past, and write it all down. Like, you remember a car ride, and then you remember the thing you saw when you got out of the car, and then you remember going to get dinner, and you remember who you saw, and then you remembered that they commented on what you ate, so then you remember that, etc. After all this I feel like I should keep it up, because it might be a great way to immortalize my past. Sort of my answer to not keeping photo albums. I feel like letting these things become forgotten, letting any tiny little memory get forgotten, like the way I felt standing on the balcony in Poughkeepsie, will cause me regret in the future. But also, it’s kind of pathetic. Remembering people I don’t even know, who don’t know me, but whose faces I crave. It’s too late for that.

been craving a write a little bit lately.

word of the week is ‘succint’

crept in as a result of letting a bookworm in for a bit! (always happens)

Paralleling my life to cutesy video games is fun. I’m on my third level. this one’s longer.

i live in a little music house, now. i have more trajectory stuck to my products now too. i have an audience, and angles to take. it is good to have an attitude of legitimacy. it is still scary to record but it really does feel the easiest its ever been.

i am procrastinating setting up my sampler for a 6/16 show with two friends, drummer &keyboardist. as i write this, i realize how simple it will be, because that removes a lot of the sampling (that is, the more performers you have, the less you have to fill in via sampling). so it will be a simpler task than I anticipate. writing puts shit into perspective once again. wooooah. (flail hand and roll the eyes.)

also a statement on how music can still be work. sometimes its cutting up audio and thats it.

I’ve been so unmotivated and uninspired. I’ve been sitting a lot. &I’ve been very lonely. I think I’ve been tossing it all to the end-of-year philosophy, which is obviously useless. I’ve sort of resigned to working on a lot of things post Jan 1st. Which, again, for anyone worthwhile, is a stupid reason. You should just always be trying regardless of what date it is. That being said, I’ve been feeling that way, but have been doing some stuff. I recorded a video today on a whim because I was bored. In all honesty, I’m not really happy with it. Maybe that’s another thing that should never be tolerated. Whatever. I also finished a new tune. It’s kinda off the wall. I think i’m going in that direction, but like trying to smooth it out into  “impressive” off the wall instead of this buzzy depressed mess like my first album which had shiltoads of conspicuous mistakes all over it. The thing is, there’s so much validity in mistakes, too. I really connected with a guy through that album, and if I cared more, I bet you it wouldn’t have been his cup of tea. There’s this song that’s been wrecking me lately called Simple Request by the Dirty Projectors. Whoever is reading that, listen to immediately, right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbXAv8fp4E8 . I have so much to say about this song, so I will. 1. It is tangential to one of my favorite albums ever, Swing Lo Magellan. SLM is Dirty Projector’s 2012 (and latest) album. In college, I discovered it when me and my two best friends went to see them in concert, kind of not really knowing how cerebral and classic they are in the contemporary music scene. That album infallibly colored my sunny days for every year after I found it. So, that is extremely close to my heart, and knowing this tune came from the same recordings and uses the same drum samples (those sorts of things) naturally provides that same infectious emanation. 2. The tune is just like, casually tossed on this throwaway single EP The fact it’s just sitting on this forgotten little EP that no one really cares about makes the tune feel particularily mysterious and lost to me. It’s like, David Longstreth, the songwriter, he wrote this album in upstate New York in a little house they rented, and recorded it there too. This song came from that same exact experience, it’s just not on the main album. So I get this kind of saddening feeling that all this heart and promise lives in this song, and he spent days working on it, and it’s about something that he made a legitimate effort to be heard, but now it just kind of lays in this bargain bin equivalent of a record. 3. Just listen to it, it’s so breezy and sunny but also slightly haunting at the same time, how do you get that vibe?? This song feels so so solitary, like not bombastic at all despite those big crashes and doubled vocals and stuff, it feels so demo-y. It just feels extra closer to like what it must have been like to be just David, working in this house, in cold Upstate NY, with all those associated sights of the forest. No band, all him. No extra voices. And the melodies, jeeze. Like, that falsetto “oh-oh-oooh,” part, it hits such this sad moment before it just gets lightly laid to rest, and the landscape surrounding it is such an effortless breezy accepted one. It’s so hard to talk about accurately. His vocals are so echo-y and kind of quieter than is normally expected in a recording, so you mostly just pick up intonation and syllable sounds more than words, but what you do pick up is like “I wanna know where you are right now, where you are right now” which has such a melancholic urgency to it, amidst this laid back landscape, that keeps getting interrupted by like these classic rock sounding crash cymbals. It’s just so dichotomous, this tune. It’s both haunting and sunny and urgent and calm and happy and sad, and the fact it’s just this random tossed aside tune makes all of that way exacerbated for me. Jeeze, I really can’t get around this tune. It’s like the most classic pale sunlight vision of sadness for me. It so perfectly complements visions and feelings I have already deeply lived in. 

I thought I’d never break that 3 year no-crying streak. My story of fiction becomes fact as of last night.

Manic manic manic drive out of town. One beer on the porch of a cafe where the barista is too sweet. She recommends the coffee stout, my favorite. I tip her $3 and write merry xmas on the check. Stare into my beer for 30 whole minutes. Frank Sinatra’s rendition of The Christmas Song comes on while the cutest couples pass by me. No one else is on the porch because i’m the only one with northern skin to handle the cold. It’s easy. Lots of walking. There was a parade here today. Probably going on tomorrow, because all the tents are still in place, albeit “closed” down. In other words, still there. Some roads are closed. Not an ice cream shop, but a bar. Amazing, honest band. Unladylike & beautiful bartender. She gives me an oatmeal stout in a solo cup “You could play beer pong after this.”

literally end it all i have to go to work early tomorrow because i’m apparently some corporate diehard literally the show stoppper pave the way I’ll see you ignoring my inbox at the coffee machine (OOC: Alright I’m not gonna carry that on anymore because what I have to say about the past week &my life in general is so different from anything the aforementioned character of my past could empathize with or ever even slightly embody because we are on such vastly different levels of communication and mentality. However, we will switch to a “Radiohead’s Online Presence” style of delivery as a means of retaining visual typoraphic ambivalence yet still heralding legitimate emotional themes. Please hold ////***//*…!!***) 

didn’t leave the house once this week. music takes over. great excuse but leaves you to obviously question the whole other shade of your existence, to which there is always always more. maybe it’s just a result of putting too much focus on one thing. too much of a good thing. bring on the crumpets.  felt guilty for willfully resigning to a night of nothing last Friday, watched a documentary on the fucking E.T. Atari game. it was mediocre but what I wanted. diner coffee. waffle house. it often feels fruitless to work on music but I always end up contributing to my own personal greater good, &like it’s going somewhere cosmic if not literal. no ships here, nope. plebs anyhow. point being feeling like giving up is the whole point of carrying on. &also i can’t see a moment where I would ever feel like I didn’t want to record music, even if nobody wanted to hear it. so why not just throw it out there. pass me a rod &reel. felt majorly alone this week. majorly. failed phone calls all around. what’s this cellular busines???? *proactivity business?? i am nostalgic for NY &college. I daydream about girls I never really knew. see subject of this post. see obvious spell of leery nostalgia. see my guttural reaction. “Guttural.” accidentally had a social weekend. oops. didn’t feel that way on account of my loneliness contract. sorry everyone. I did record something I’m proud of. worked on that all day yesterday. comes out tomorrow, link soon. it’s acoustic which is both like and unlike me. it’s like me to the small public but not me to myself. formalities. except this time I really appreciate it. it’s the right move. very connected to it. I hope the right people see it.