tour recap narative....read on

Ok, so what follows is the first two installments of fractured memories of 2 and a half week on the road with my bandmates in Roxy Jones. It may not make complete sense because these are cut out of peices of posts to the RJ mailing list. Expect further post of this legnth and on this subject because we're only at day two. Wait till we get to portland!!!!
Anyway here goes......
Oh, and if anyone associated with us danger folks wants to be a part of the RJ emails, drop me a line at nobodywants2brj@yahoo.com
As we were......

EPISODE 1 (originally titled "How to Shop for Roxy Jones in a Seller's Market)

Thanks so much to every person who shared with us a
good time on the road, to everyone who helped us play
a show, to everyone who came to watch and those who
played with us. Extra special thanks to everyone who
opened up there homes and their kitchens (Katie's
award-winning, secretly-veggy muffins for starters).
Those who opened their wallets for us get atleast a
year of good luck starting tomorrow!


I've been meaning to peice this trip together for a
week? Two weeks now?
It's hard to tell. I've got two different calenders
that say we were in more than one town on certain
nights. Which one is the master calander?
Let's start the night before the begining...

I should have been packed already. I should
have atleast been packing. Instead I was playing
pinball in the Pink Elephant. Was that what I was
doing? I seem to remember being at several bars for
Meaghan's birthday, but I'm not sure if that was the
night before or not. I jumped in the bushes and
Promised Drew that I would search for the true
proponents of Fresno Hedgecore. A promise that would
be broken days later.
Whichever night that was doesn't mater. It
was the night before we left that I was closing down
the bar by myself.....Instead of getting ready. My
plan was to just throw some shit in the van, and the
van was in the shop still. Perhaps drinking was the
only logical course. Despite my rationalization, I
was feeling odd. Sort of like being the only one in
gym class on acid. No one could understand why I
just wanted to hide under the bleachers and play
pinball. In truth, nobody cared. It was just another
night at the same fucking bar with the same fucking
people--friends, aquantinces, and all of them
well-wishers--I was anxious to get out of town for a
spell. How much would I miss this drinking until two
at the same place. It was in the air.

9/7/07 Show in Los Angeles at 9pm...Proposed
departure time
from San Diego: 2pm

It was 3pm, and we were not ready, nor was the
van ready for pick up. A steal at $500, we were
having $2800 worth of "the works" for the past week,
the mechanic knowing that "James" had to be on the
road today. We were starting to sweat.
Skip forward to us in Echo Park trying to find
a place called Pehrspace, which we find. Our old
friends Minmae are playing there with us tonight,
along with their friends Chase Frank. It's always
nice to see a familiar face in an unfamiliar town.
After having 30 egg rolls and boba tea next door, we
play a show to a small crowd that includes Darrin's
sister, her husband, their two kids, and a handful of
people there to see the other two bands. We are
officially in uncharted territory and it feels great.
We stay the night at Darrin's sisters house which is
amazing! Phil and I get our own private room and each
our own private bed.
I woke up early and made my bed before
catching Darrin drinking some sort of orange rind tea.
Then we all went outside for a smoke. We discussed
our future plans and wether or not they would include
owning such a nice place. After I brush my teeth I
snapped some photos of a school project belonging to
Darrin's nephew. It was a model of Alcatraz that
suggested using the condemned prison as a solution to
the problem of limited space for relocating native
americans. Considering the information in grade
school history books concerning "indians", his heart
was definately in the right place. Privy to growing
up and learning a little more, I'm sure he would
appreciate my need to take a photograph. That said,
both of these children seemed very bright. Awards
everywhere for everything.
After our daily reorganization of James we
were on the road to Merced, and a day early at that.

***********************************************************************

EPISODE 2 (originally titled "Vodka and Apple Juice, Is This Ok?"

No, I've opted instead for a beer. If I went the
vodka route, I would have to have a cigarette, and I
don't feel like buying any. Or smoking any... That's
a lie. I would love to smoke one right now but I
won't. One too many mornings and a thousand bucks
behind.....
Once again, scroll down if you hate the narritive BS.

I left out a part last time that I feel is pretty
important. Mostly because playing in LA was the
closest to home and the only time we got lost. Unless
you count Oakland, but wasabi peanuts will only get
you so far when trying to navigate underground
roadways. Before we move on, I will make short of
this:
We were going to stay with Darrin's sister in LA, but
with real jobs and two young children to put to bed,
we were left at Pehrspace with only directions to said
house. Hours later we discovered that these
directions involved several roads and highways that,
at later hours, were closed for matinence. Needless
to say, our drive to the house was long and difficult,
involving many wild goose chase instructions from
people who didn't understand me any more than I
understood them. I plan to speak fluent spanish
within the year. It's been too long, and besides, my
mexican friends are tired of me using the same dirty
words that I learned three years ago working in the
lighting warehouse. We got to the house at maybe 3
o'clock to make it easy.
Skip forward to the next day.
Each day was planned out with a printed map
marked with a number to indicate it's order in the
trip. Today was 2.
We started by fueling the van and then our
stomachs. This meal is not worth any further
discussion, but it did the trick. And then we were on
the road to---checking calender for verification---as
I though, Merced.
It was early Saturday morning and we were
scheduled to play a house party at 6pm on Sunday.
This meant that we would be arriveing a day early with
a day off....Which was excellent, because we had heard
nothing but good things about the town to which we
were heading.
The drive was pretty uneventful, my memory is
only attached at this point to two things. This was
the drive that would define the limitations of the
van. Both we Had Been warned about.

Maybe this would be a good time to go into a
little detail about our van's history:

ROXY JONES TRANSPORT VESSLE

name: James (t. kirk?)
make, model: 1987 Ford Econoline 250, 6-cylindarr
seller: Tim and Drew awesome van great
carpet, inc.
cost: Highly classified
postmrkt features: 25,500 v. electric anti-theft door
knobs
overhead sleep/storage
bunk
Elvis Presley ornament
on passenger side roll bar
one very fucked up
stereo

Coffee heals what liquor steals.
Buy a house on the coast and
fall into the ocean.
we'll never slow down
saving the planet is just a commercial now.
Things like this were written in some sort of barely
visible paint all over the windshield. This made it
incredibly hard to focus. Especially with the
goddamned stereo situation.

Before we even got out of town (narrowly
dodging a $2000 bill from the manager of our practice
space) the van started to malfunction. This was
immeadiately upsetting considering that we were
already another $2800 down in repairs and two and a
half hours late leaving and on the phone with our
landlord telling him we're in LA already and the
check's in the mail while simultaniously being right
in front of the building with all our shit packed out
in a van that won't fucking start that we just go out
of the shot ten fucking minutes ago!
FUCK!!!!!!!!!
But it started, just like it would every
other time this happened throughout the trip. Yes,
sometimes it was scarry, but it always worked. It
became like a funny mind game that James would play
with us. With each time James seemed more and more
human.
That was minor. The first problem that
really got our attention was that the cd player was
close to usless. It wouldn't skip tracks, and the
first track would never play. Fifteen minutes of
turning the power off and on seemed to fix it. So the
music flourished. Maybe we listened to Tom Petty's
last album (next to last?), Highway Companion? The
New York dance compilation in the nice box may have
also been in this rotation.
But the music had to be turned off, along
with everything else when we hip the grapevine.
We started at a speed of 65mph, a constant
rate that became my mantra of safe driving quickly. I
noticed that the van would not blow up if you kept it
below 70mph. So I drove at 65 to keep some headroom.
Not that 70 meant anything. It just hadn't blown up
yet, and I may be prone to superstition.
Back to the future, we were losing power and
speed rapidy as we began to arch in velocity up the
mountain, like we had hit a runaway truck ramp and
could be sure that all was safe and we would stop in
time. Except at 30mph, we were not in danger of
running away from anything. If I remeber correctly,
at this point Darrin was sleeping in the passanger
seat, and Phil was staring over my shoulder, seeing
the same thing as me. There were two needles in two
opposide corners of the console. The one on the upper
left was for the gas gauge, and the one in the upper
right indicated the temperature of the engine. They
were both moving alarmingly fast in oppisite
directions.
Problem number two: bad with hills.

***********************************************************************

09/08/07 aprox. 8 or 12pm Merced, CA

I originally remebered it as around sundown, but I
also clearly recall getting there only an hour or two
before the bars closed. Oh, wait. Most of these were
hotel bars, and we were try to find a pool that was
open after 10? We bought gas and decided that we
would get a hotel for the night.
First we drove around a bit. We searched for
the new university, maybe something going on
there.....Main st. G st? we were on the main drag
and excited about the town. It was quite small but a
cozy, and instantly familiar place. Though none of us
had ever been there. We decided to find a place to
stay. I had to make a BM pretty bad too.
All the hotels in Merced were off of one exit
that led to a confusing intersection. After a few
tries though, we we on the hotel drags stopping at
each place asking the same questions:
How much? How many beds? Wireless or
ethernet? How late can we swim in the pool? Where's
the closest bar?
These questions would become routine in more than one
town. After visiting four or five places, we found
one that was the cheapest with a pool and right next
door to a bar. The bar sucked serrious ass and wanted
an a $4 cover to watch middle aged biker scum
wannabe's smell bad. No thanks. We spent the ten
extra dollars to stay in the swank place with the cute
desk clerk. We saved millions by buying our own beer.
In the hotel, Bob Saget is on t.v. saying
"fuck, cunt, or crack cocaine" ever half second. I
think he should sit down with Dr. Phil one of these
days. Dr. Phil from Roxy Jones, of course.
There is a bar at the hotel, but we are told
that it is already closed. The rest of the evening is
a little hazy, but these are things that happened for
sure:
We bought our own alcohol. We bought our own
dinner. I demonstrated my skills with nunchucks in
the parking lot, which got us invited to a "private
party" at the hotel bar. The private party turned out
to be a bunch of martial arts jocks in town for a
convention who were keeping the poor bartender hours
late despite that she had to be back in the morning.
Phil drank a something and I had a double jack and
coke that might as well have been a pint of whiskey.
No, wait, they had no jack so I was given crown royal
for the same price. We tipped well and tried to
distance ourselves from the freaks, although I did try
to make friendly by asking to join a game of poker. I
was rudely rufused. We finished our drinks and headed
back to the room.
Somehow we ran into Albert and Red. They
were firefighters on their way north to extinguish
some shit. They had just arrived with the rest of
their engine crew in a big green truck. It brought
back memories of my first fall in california. The
year of the great cedar fire that looked like an
atomic blast when I woke up that afternoon five years
ago. I made sure that as soon as this crew was off
the clock, they drank beers and we all played guitar
and shot the shit in the street until the senior desk
clerk told us that people were complaining. We gave
up the guitar but continued to drink and shot the
shit. Before we all went to bed (they were due to
leave at 7:30) they let me put on a fire suit to take
pictures. I told them I'd mail a picture and a copy
of our cd as soon as we got it. It has been mailed.

***********************************************************************


The tempo's slow, but I'm ready to go
On days when nothing is quite the way it should be.
You can never hold any certain variable in place for
any
measureable amount of time.
Certainly not, invariabley not.
Ha!
When we first met, you had held so tight that some
blood from your
face stuck to my shirt. And now
we sit in two different airplanes meeting only in
cold, lonely
refueling stations dimly lit with
only a few flourescent bulbs high in the air
rolling between on and off like heavy sheets of rain
playing
shadows with a street lamp.

***********************************************************************


We are playing a show soon.

Sunday, November 4
@
The Kensington Club
w/
EL OLIO WOLOF (super awesome band from merced, a must
see!!!)
and
TRASHCAN FIRES (local San Diego Band that makes
CASTLES!!!!!!!)
these bands are fucking great. Come to the show or
eat yellow snow!
Don't take my word for it....www.myspace.com/

trashcanfires

eloliowolof

Our plasic disc is for sale, and you'll be happy
you're buying it.
Dorkload-->
http://www.digstation.com/ArtistAlbums.aspx?albumID=ALB000010849
Forkload--> HOI Studios
3791 Arnold Ave.
San Diego, CA 92104
$7 for cd
$10 for shirt (s,m,l,xl;
black,blue.red.pumkin,purple)
$15 for both plus extra secret
supprise(not fleas)

Hope you are all well!
<3
RJ