Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Go, Splash Mountain, Go!



This is Steve. You may have heard us mention him before. He is a phenomenal songwriter (and he's pretty good in bed, too!). You should definitely check out his music here. He plays under the name Moor Hound. Don't ask him why.
Now, not only do I love Steve's music, but he is a really great dude. I had the honor of riding in his truck, Maroono, on the trip from Sarasota to Orlando. We shared some chuckles, some tears, and he repeatedly stopped my advances.
He set up about three shows for us down here in Florida, is letting us stay at his house for three days, and went to Disney World with us. Talk about backbone!
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's go back to St. Augustine.

Hello. We're in St. Augustine. The oldest city in the United States. Of course yours truly wanted dearly to check out the sites in the area. But, as you might have gathered, yours truly is bad with organization and time management, and so we got the city just in time to find out that all of the other bands dropped off the show. That didn't stop us from doing our thing, though. In fact, we got so into the set, we wore costumes in the spirit of the history of the city. Here's a picture of Dillon as Ponc de Leon. The bartender felt bad for us and threw some money our way. We stayed to watch the local acoustic guy, and folks, I know I've said this a lot on this tour, but I mean it: I've never seen anything like it. Dude was drunk. I've seen that. But some of the patrons in the bar started a drum circle with the large wooden tables, while another screamed to the rhythm of the songs, "Play on Playa!" This went on for multiple songs. I would say that it got old, but you already knew that. It's St. Augustine!

St. Augustine was an interruption to our otherwise lovely stay in Gainesville, FL. Our good bud Evan from Umoja Orchestra let us run the house for a few days while he packed up to move to New York. Friday night brought us to a really great venue in Gainesville called The Atlantic, where we played with some really good bands, including Plastic Plastic. That was their first show and they pulled it off perfectly. No one threw anything at anyone else or growled or peed themselves. More than I can say for our first show. Anyway, the show was really great. Tons of people! We made it!

Saturday meant driving to Tampa but also seeing Steve. We played in an awesome used book store/record store called Mojo's in Tampa. I finally got to hear some new Moor Hound songs, which were fantastic. I also got to witness my new favorite summer band, The Grecian Urns, who put on a great unplugged show. The book store was so rad, they gave us stuff of free! Kurt snagged some piano books, I got a history of the Normans in Europe, and Kyle ended up with the entire Sweet Valley High series. That night we took over Kurt's uncle's house, which had a swimming pool, hot tub, king size bed, dungeon, and lots of pizza! We even made friends with the neighbors.

We then followed Steve to Sarasota for our show on Sunday. And let me tell you, the kids in Sarasota do not mess around. It was like playing for a brick wall. Faces straight, minimal applause. But then, we sold a few CDs and people said they really liked it. It reminded me of the good old days.

Yesterday we woke up around 7:30 and took of to Disney World, where dreams come true. The six of us ruled the park. We fast passed every dingus who tried to keep up with us. And in the Monster's Inc Laugh Room, Alex played Sully in the recreation of the plot of Monsters Inc. And! Kyle texted one of my (original) jokes to the number they put on the screen and they read it! What is it you ask?

Knock knock.

Who's there?

Butter pecan.

Butter pecan who?

Butter pecan someone your own size!

I know it doesn't make any sense, but that's not the point. The point is that all I needed was boost to continue my pursuit of being a comedian and this was it. So, Benji, I hate to tell you, but I will be writing more and more jokes.

Disney World was more wonderful than I thought it could be. We are all pretty exhausted and our show fell through for tonight. So, we will be spending the day reflecting on our wonderful experience yesterday, how Mickey Mouse is actually kind of a dick, Minnie Mouse is a hussy, and there are few things as exhilarating or as terrifying as Space Mountain.
Also, we will try to get healthy. With only about eleven days left, a few of us have started to get the sickness. Here's hoping to hang in there to the end!

What Mickey don't know won't hurt him.

-Zack

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