July 2009: Touring with Budz Tour

First and foremost, I have to apologize for the lack of substance and the abundance of the "condiments" on tourblog. Stephen has some awfully big shoes to fill, and none of us really felt like we had the ability to step up to the plate. Also, I can speak only in cliches. But since today is the last day of Touring with Budz Tour, I thought I'd give a recap. Here it is.

FRIDAY
Time was passing slowly at work. All I could do was listen to my awesome Viking lecture series to keep from getting antsy. Finally it was quittin' time. I booked it down to Muncie where we all piled in the Fart Van and headed to Bowling Green, OH. I was super stoked on the show until I found out the sound guy invited the entire population of Wood County to play before us. So we sat through some dude playing awful 90's cover songs. THEN! This dude from Seattle performed his noise experiment set. He was dressed sort of like this, only with wings and spandex. Finally, we got to jam and got to see Traveling by Sea play, which was a total party. After the show, we walked to a Christian ministry cookout and got free burgers and hot dogs. Kyle puked them up, and I slept a pile of broken corn chips.

SATURDAY
After sleeping on Traveling By Sea's trash floor, the guys had to hose me off out back. We got breakfast at Kermit's. Soon, we were zooming our way back to the great state of Indiana and to the bustling metropolis of St. Joe. The show was in a kid's barn in the middle of nowhere. There was a pond, so naturally a few boneheads jumped in only to find it was about a foot deep. Alex, Kyle, and Erik took out some kayaks and Erik got lime disease from all the ticks he found burrowing in his blood vessels. The show was tight, just the two bands. After the show, there was a rave inside the barn in which Cool Steve would have given his giant left nut to dance. We took off north to Alex's mom's house where there was pizza and soda and beer waiting for us. Alex and Kurt played bartender and concocted a drink of 110% alcohol for Erik to drink before bed. We watched Signs, which is awesome except that I think the aliens look an awful lot like members of the Foot Clan.

SUNDAY
Pool Party with Budz part 1 took place in the backyard. I set the record for most blocks on the floating basketball goal in the pool. Dave doesn't know how to swim, so he sat in a lawn chair and screamed at us about Harpo Marx. We finally took off to Columbus, OH, where an awesome game of Four Square ensued. Rodeo totally schooled Traveling by Sea. By the end of the session, they were all crying so hard their tears were putting out their cigarettes. The venue we played in had a tree growing through the middle of the floor. We had the distinct pleasure of playing with This is My Suitcase again, who both astounds and blows our minds with their live show. That night we went to Dayton to stay with Andy's and Dan's hopeful girlfriends. They offered us the upstairs apartment that was empty for the summer. Dave, Kyle, and I walked in to the front of the house and were told to go upstairs. The apartment we walked into, however, looked like it had been lived in. Kyle was in his underwear on the couch. I was about to take the bed when I decided to go back downstairs to make sure we were in the right place. I was reassured twice before I realized we were in the wrong fucking apartment! We booked it out of there faster than Lief Erikson booked it out of the New World in 1009.

MONDAY
The babes made us eggs with a bunch of shit in it, but we ate it anyway. They were giving out haircuts to the TBS dudes, but we are all smooth looking dudes so we said no way. Erik and Dave found a laminated, blown up picture of the girls who lived upstairs and now it is taped to the inside of our window. Bimbos!! Cincinnati was calling our names, and I was stoked to see Jimmy again. When we got to Molly Malones, there was a bagpipe band marching around outside. The show went swimmingly except for one beer placement mishap. Krista let us stay at our house and Erik thanked her by showing her his JJ. We all got beds. Dave screamed in his sleep and bonked his head on the ceiling.

TUESDAY
I got a call on the toilet from my good pal Scott who gave me some bad news about his band. I love Scott a lot and so we drove down to Louisville early and took him out for the biggest pizza of my life. In the pizza place was a very large nude painting of Burt Reynolds. The show was at Derby City Espresso, which is a pretty awesome place. My ritual for Louisville shows now is to talk to Sean from Buzzgrinder about our favorite cartoons. Scott played a killer set with a handful of Fever on the Forest Floor songs. We took off through the night to Indianapolis where most of Rodeo stayed at Alex's apartment and I took TBS to Liz's apartment where I slept outside in hammock.

WEDNESDAY
This was our first time playing in a real venue in Chicago. Usually we play at Sabrina's place, but this time we got a show at Reggie's. It started out weird when we got kicked out of the green room. But then the guys helped us load in our equipment, gave us free food, and free drinks. I can't remember another time we've been treated so well. The show opened with something. . . a he/she. We named it Herman because we couldn't tell if it was a her or a man. The show was fun but a little strange. One of the waitresses invited us to go party on a boat. The six of us are level-headed dudes and we know a bamboozle when we see it. So we grabbed Matt and Lauren and headed to Janie's house where we settled into a nice snooze. The rest of the TBS, however, drove all over Chicago, got drunk, slept on the waitresses floor because I gave them the wrong number. The next day, they drove all over Chicago again. They found Marky in some bitch's bed, his virginity still intact, and met us at a diner. We had some good eats, but those newbs stayed and got stuck with our check!

THURSDAY
We woke up and had breakfast at Arnold's, where Alex's feta omelet was payed for by him and TBS. After filling our stomachs, we left those newbs in the dust and drove to Urbana, IL, where our good friend David Simison lives. The show was in his basement apartment. I know what you're thinking, Stephen, but I saw 0 spiders. Instead, we played the hottest show of all time with shirts off and Erik sporting a Batman cape. During Eagle Scout's set, some idiot opened bags of cheesy poofs and popcorn and threw them everywhere. The dance floor turned into a slip and slide. Dave and Erik lost a combined 30 pounds from just sweating. The night pressed on and we realized that there were way more people staying the night than we anticipated. Alex, Erik, Kurt and I were debating on the front porch whether or not we should pack up and go, crash the living room party, or try to snooze on the cheesy poofs floor. Just as Kurt was mapping out our plan of action, some douche bag started a verbal fist fight with me. I was ready to pull out my awesome roundhouse kick and show that tater turd who was boss, but we decided to get the hell out of Urbana. We drove through the night to Kurt's cluttered apartment.
"Good job Kurt. . . . I saw your back."
Then we slept.

FRIDAY
Kurt woke us up with Gondolas and then we walked the three miles across the searing hot pavement to his dinky pool. Erik once again proved that he was king of the underwater when he swam across the pool three times in one breath and then oiled down the bikini babes. We watched most of Cool Runnings before heading to Kim's house for some free pizza. She built a pond behind her house and we were stoked to go exploring, but her brother screamed and cried when we asked to take the paddle boat for a ride, so we gave him some tums and took him to Bible Study and eventually he forgot that he was being a little unfair. We took off to the show in Peoria where we were greeted with cookies and Airheads. This show was looking good so far. Then Kyle and Kurt decided to do a Three Stooges routine and trip each other and poke each other in the eyes before we played. I was a little nervous but Kurt's entire family showed up to ease the tension. We played a sick set but missed Dave badly. Peoria is always always good to us, and this night it was extra good. We topped it off by getting some Taco Bell and resting by the fire at Kyle Rose's house.

SATURDAY
We hung out at Kurt's for a bit until we remembered that we had a show tonight. Kurt had a wedding to go to, or he was on an assignment for his other job. We swung by David's house in Urbana to pick up our posters and beat up that douche bag who picked a fight with us, then booked it to Indianapolis. We rolled up to the ES Jungle, not sure what to expect. The crowd was light but the feeling in the air was magical. We put on a 4-piece rock show. Annie came down to sing, but you could definitely feel Kurt's and Dave's absence. Mike was also there and he came up and sang at the end. He rocked the house like he was Jizzy Pearl! Stoked on such a successful tour and last show, we went to Gaby's rich aunt's house to swim. I got my coke and chips on and eventually took a nice warm dip in their heated pool. Everything was awesome until Kyle forgot he was cooking corn dogs and we burned down their mansion. The fire dept. was called and on the way home, as if God was mocking us, we heard "Burning Down the House," on the radio. Kyle was still apologizing to Gaby's family, so it was just Erik and me giggling on the way back to Alex's apartment. Just a couple of budz finishing the last drive of a terrific week.