Rockin’ in the Medford Lands

I just got back from the land of Ford on Medication. Med. Ford. Get it? Har har!!… yeah, I’ve been in a bus for 6+ hours, give me a break. So sunday morning I was up bright and early and lindsay takes me to the bus station… we had about 20 minutes to get from lindsays house to there. Needless to say, we made it due to some superior navigating… and driving, of course 😉 Anyway, hugs from lindsay and made a brisk walk twards the door. The bus was already borded and the bus driver seemed suprised to see me. Two minutes after getting a seat in the rear (only two seats open on the bus). 7+ hours later I was in Medford (~2pm) and calling Justin to pick me up and tell him where the bus station was in a city I haven’t lived in for a million years.

So we drop off my stuff at Justin’s apartment and say hi to Sara; his GF of 3 years as of next month! WOW! Kitty grew! Yes, that’s the name of their cat, most of the time. We chilled… I had a couple *jingle*”Hot Pockets”*end jingle*. Watched a horribly edited version of the Matrix for a while. “Jeepers Creepers!”, “Shucks!”. The time came to goto Dougs(guitar/lyracist) before show #1.

Tangent: Justin is in a new band with a geeky sounding name, “Nothing Error”. The name in itself has some interesting implications, the more I think about it the more I like it. But what’s in a name? You may have heard of 3 Day Girlfriend last time I talked about Justin. They’re no more. Nucular Implosion; in other words the singer/lyricist face turned into two really big cheeks and whenever he talked poop came out. I wasn’t there of course, so I can neither conferm or deny.

UN-Tangent: Loaded up a van went to le’ show location(Grants Pass)… waited in a pub for 2 hours because of cunfusion and/or miscomunication and/or/most likely retartded planning on the part of ppl who are not us. We waiting most of that time for food. When it came there was a vat of frys. Enough for David(bass player) to plea me and Justin to mooch. We obliged, naturally. Shows start at the little coffee shop hole-in-da-wall. The room was small… crowd was smaller. Got a wall of noise blasted at me, I lost some hearing… we went home.

Next day wake up… go out n’ do stuff… poor w/nothing to do… went back to the appt. to play video games. Hi Sara on luch. Bye Sara on work. Watched Tenatious D video. Jack Black is freaking nuts. In a unusually cool way. I don’t know… I find the sick psycho extremely entertaining.

Anyhoot, Time to goto Dougs before show #2. Nothing Error was one of 5 bands to open for Presidents of the USA. Or POT USA, if you like. Kitty on my foot and I wanna touch it. Millions of peaches, peaches for me. Old man on the back porch… and that: Old man is meeee. Ring a bell? Kinda cool, I listened to these guys in high school. EARLY high school/late middle school… does this make me old? or them old? Either way, it was pretty cool to be able to sing along to such random and catchy lyrics. As fate/insanity/lack of logic/planning should have it, POT USA used Nothing Error’s equipment since they require just about everything to be there except for their few choice pieces. I.E. guitars and cymbles. I’m jumping ahead tho.

We got to the Roller Odessy at around 4. That’s when they were asked to be there for sound checks and shtuff you know? And yes. For those unMedfordites out there, that IS a roller skating rink. A damn old one from what I could tell. Anyway… I got a roady back stage pass thing. We take the stuff out of the van. We wait around for the stage ppl to get their shit together until about 6 or so. I see a theme going on here… two days… two concerts… there on time… lots of waiting around.

Damn this is long. Sum up. Nothing Error finally get a sound check. We also get shown our room with catering… a table of food and a cooler or beer/water. Ppl finally got let in, including Sara who I met outside to make sure she got in free. Nothing Error plays, they sound good. I went to bed with a couple of their riffs in my head. We spent most of the rest of the time in the room with other roadys and friends. Laughter and joy had by all. Booze by most as well. Finally POT USA get up there… rocked the crowd. Rocked Justin’s drum set. Gave him some sticks… signed some sticks. Heard about more insanity on the side of promotions there… lol. Amatures. Not that I could do better… I don’t try swimming in currents I have no chance of making it though.

Went home warn out and tired from new memorys. Good times. Met some new cool ppl. Went to bed around 1am. Got up at 5:30am… went to the bus station @ 6ish when the bus was supposed to be there. Waited until 7 for the bus to take on passengers. Then crazy bus driver making up time got me to portland by 12ish. Not bad! lol. Anyway… lindsay is here gotta go. See you next time internet junkys.

More Adventurous Rambling

Isn’t it nice coming home to your own shower? You stay at other peoples houses and use their showers, and you’re greatfull for that. A persons bathroom is one of those sacred places… you don’t go in there because it’s one of two places you’re most likely to find things you don’t want to see. But the showers are always too soft, or too short, or it doesn’t get hot enough. My shower has a nosle that turns it into a pressure washer, going from that to just about anything seems like you’re rinsing under a dripping fosset.

Anyway, back to it. I got up to goto church the next morning. Made a quick stop at Freddy’s to pick up a belt and a t-shirt to go under my button up white shirt. I arrive in such a manner that I can see anyone leaving first service, and get to meet with people coming the the second. It was an interesting event. All of my old friends were a little busy. I didn’t plan with them like I did with Justin, and I don’t expect them to stop their lifes for me. I had some fun chats, eventually gave up trying to reconnect with some and went back to Justin’s. We went to a place called Tin Tin Chinese. It’s a Chinese buffette, and was really good and awsome. They even had crab and shrimp on the buffette tables. There was a sushi bar in one part, Justin told me about it after I was already full though I was in the mood for trying new things. Oisters aren’t very good… they have a odd texture too.

Then we went to the mall. Visited Spencers, Software Ect., and joked and laughed. It happens that I saw Makiko there, but I didn’t know if it was her, she looked too different from how I saw her 3 years ago so I didn’t approach her. After that we went to the bowling ally and threw a round… bowling is a strange ‘sport’ for me. I start of, not good, but my aim isn’t that bad either. As I bowl I get worse and worse until I’m throwing gutter balls. After the round we went to talk Bob in the Bowling Bar. Talked and had good times. Justin had a brew, Sara a Mike’s lite. I had Sprite. Then I introduced Justin to a version of DDR that the bowling place had that didn’t let you pick what skill set you wanted! We lasted about 15 seconds before it said “YOU SUCK, GET THE HELL OUTTA HERE L00ZERZ!” Or something like that. Then we went back to the apartment and played Soul Caliber II until band practice. Loud and much better than I heard them before I got an exclusive concert as they played their line up all the way through to work some of the bugs out. 3 Day Girlfri3nd is the name of the band, check the the web site if you wanna hear. I’ll warn you that their sound files don’t do them justice, they sound awsome live.

Go home, goto sleep… not much else happened that day.

Next day I picked up Makiko Watanabe from her host familied house. As soon as I saw her I knew that she was who I saw at the mall. It’s really interesting to hang out with someone of a completely different culture. She was amazed how I chatted with strangers as they rung up items or prepaired my food. Apparently they don’t do anything like that in Japan. Of course that just made me want to show off and do it more, and sometimes get her to chip into the conversation. But they don’t say, “What’s up?” or “How’re you today?” or anything, when they see their friends they say there names and ask what they’re doing there. The only time they meet new people is in class or fellow co-workers. I think it would be fun to visit Japan and drive them all nuts with my crazy extrovertous head nods, smiles and good mornings!

Hmm… first we went to South High and walked the halls, she took pictures with her nifty little high technology camara. I don’t think we have that model in the US yet. Then we took a drive over to the park and walked around. I was worried cuz she had these little high heel shoes, I inquired about them a number of times, but she said they were quite comfortibal to her. I still don’t believe her. Then we went to the mall and ate food. She asked to goto Spencers, and I got to explain a few crude American jokes to her. Like what the difference between “a bitch” and “THE bitch”. What “Tits” mean. And other various things I never expected I would explaining to her. She was laughing the entire time, at me as much as at the witty bottle openers. I don’t think she’s as much of a good girl as her inocent Japanese persona makes her out to be.

After that I tried to make her my stylist and pick out what color shirt I should wear with the jeans I had on. I was wearing a long sleeve shirt on a hot day, and everything else I brought was dirty. Eventually she picked a plain black shirt, I think it was too much pressure for her. It was fun though. Then we went to Circuit City, she got a CD and a sun visor CD holder like the ones I have in my car. We went to see Starsky and Hutch. She said she thought it was funny, but I never saw her laugh except for the part where an oriental guy was saying that all americans look the same to him, then Owen Wilson said all orientals look the same to HIM. Not a very good movie, but it passed time by a little.

Finally we had coffee… well, she had hot chocolet and I had a large carmel mocha freeze for the drive home. We sat and talked. I learned Japanese words and asked about how she talks when she’s with her friends in Japan. All in all, that day alone would have made the three day trip worth it, but luckely I had a blast the entire time I was down there. I needed that break, it’s refueled a side of me that living in Portland dranes away and contenues to suck at ever after you’re dry. Anyway, time to goto work.

Why? Because. That’s why ;Þ

I got back from Medford about 12:30 this morning. A whole lot got crammed in to the last three days, accumilativly it can be summed up by the phrase ‘Kick Ass!’ It would make for a long story, but I’ll just give the highlights. I was proud of myself for making it to Medford in around four hours, a pretty good run for not speeding, too much. Get to the apartment of my old friend of 7 years, Justin Bullen. Sara, Justin’s GF of 2 years, is the one there to greet me. I tried finding the practice pad for Justin’s band out in the boondox’s, but no luck. Wake up the next morning to Kitty attacking my foot with razer sharp claws. It was on then, I played with the cat for about an hour before Justin and Sara woke up, my hands are decorated with about a hundred nicks and cuts now. They havn’t named their 1 year old little black cat so they just call her Kitty, or stupid, or shit-head depending on their feelings for the cat while their talking to it.

That day was filled with the wanderings of old high school days. Getting in the car and driving before we actually descide. Driving around a block a few times, getting odd looks from the locals. We eventually ran a few errands for Sara, then went to see my other family at Justin’s parents house. Had some laughs, talked of times and caught up. Then we went to meet with our ol’ pal Muttly at Abby’s. I don’t know his real name, but he made one of the greatest pizza’s I’ve tasted, The Muttly Special. Invented by him, of course. Instead of traditional tomato paste pizza sauce he uses ranch. Yes, as in the salad dressing. Top that with three cheeses, chicken, and bacon… the most filling and wholy unhealthy pizza you’ll eat, but oh so good. But I didn’t feel my arterys clogging until Jusin and I took a shot of ranch from the dipping sauce cups. Ahhh, it’s nice being around friends you can connect with again*dabs at a tear*. After that Justin and I went to Guitar Center and jammed on various instriments.

Did a few other things that would take lots of past explaining to understand their signifigance. Eventually wound up back at the house waiting for the party to start. Justin and Sara called up some friends and bought some booze. Sum up is that one person showed up with his GF. I watched them get drunk while watching American Wedding then Justin passed out in the bed and everyone else went to sleep. One of these days I’ll probably just say, “f’ it” take Justin’s bottle of Jack and chug it and get drunk. Just one of those wierd things that some how got hard-wired into my head that I’m thinking about igoring because I want find out how bad of a mistake it would really be.

I’ll tell the next day in my next update, after a shower.