Day 8 - Aug. 13 - Wednesday

Portland, Portland, it took FOREVER to get to you. We woke up late and therefore left late. And then, as if the drive wasn't long enough or hot enough we hit a ridiculous line of traffic in Oregon. Like people getting out of their cars and walking around traffic. Luckily, we were near an exit as we pulled up to the end of a very, very, very long line and decided to follow a tour bus and an 18 wheeler. We figured the tour bus was probably going to Portland and the 18 wheeler was getting alternate routes from his CB (CV?..C-something) radio. Whether our guesses were right or not, we'll never know but the point is that after heading down some country side roads we made it back onto the highway, past the fires and the traffic. success!

Well, until we got to an intersection with a railroad crossing hosting a train moving in-cred-i-bly slooowly.

But then it passed! yay. We loaded into the Doug Fir Lounge, sound checked and waited around. The few blocks I saw of portland were pretty cool. Lots of cyclists. Lots of independent shops. Lots of things in walking distance. The Doug Fir has got to be one of the nicest/coolest venue's I've ever been in. I think someone described it as a retro-chic log cabin. There were orange tinged lights on the floor of the bar and a pretty cool light set up for the backdrop of the stage. I'm not doing a great job of describing it, so you'll just have to look at my pictures and see for yourself.

The show went pretty well. I can't remember the exact set list but I know these songs were in it: Harm & Boon, Settler, Limmat, the new acoustic song, the new piano song, the new banjo song (we've got a lot of naming to do) and maaybe San Solomon.

I think all in all the shows have been good. It's just been hard for us in the string section to hear ourselves well. Things tend to get muddled or lost in our monitor mix. I think the day when we have our own in-ear head phones as monitors (a.k.a no time soon) will be the day when no one is iffy about anything. Anyway, afteward, we stayed at the house of the violinist from Stars of the Lid. She was sleeping when we got there, so we crept in and quickly proceeded to take a good 20 minutes to decide who was sleeping where. There were two beds, one couch and a lot of floor space. There were seven of us. hrm. I lined up some couch pillows, found a sheet and called it my bed while four others paced around the house. After some kind of magic, people decided where they were sleeping.

Then we decided we weren't tired.

Travis, Rob, Jesy and I went for a walk around the neighborhood. After we got lost, we found an elementary school and swung, ran and climbed in the playground. It's always good to feel like a kid every now and again, if only for a little while. Our quick walk "down the street" took at least 30 minutes, so we went back and tried to be quiet. However, the dog broke into a barking fit as we came up the stairs and once inside someone hit the cymbal on the drums, probably waking up everyone (oops). Except for Michael that is, who slept in his sleeping bag in the backyard. We crawled into our sleeping places, said goodnight and called it one.

Day 7 - Aug. 12 - Tuesday

After waking up in San Francisco and making a breakfast stop at a bagel shop, we headed for the van. Oh, I thought this was noteworthy: While walking to the bagel shop, this homeless man walked up to us and said, "hey, can you spare $150,000?" and then burst out laughing (in a non-creepy way). We laughed with him and kept walking.

I don't remember much about the drive. All I can recall about this day is the extreme weirdness that is Eureka, California, the place we played. It seemed normal at first. We went to a restaurant with pretty good food. Then I noticed the giant, fake, fuzzy spider (with teeth) they had rigged to move up and down with the opening and closing of the door. Then I saw the other creepy Halloween leftovers scattered about the room and wondered what was going on. The place wasn't themed beyond that. Maybe they just really like Halloween. Or maybe they were trying to warn us that Eureka is pretty freakin weird.

Then we got to the venue, which also seemed normal at first. RIGHT after we walked in, some creepy guy pretending to be a gangster though he was white, made some kind of atrocious pick-up line and sauntered over to Nicole. Then, he comes outside to help us unload our things, and kisses the hand of Jesy (of Tiny Vipers) and does this all very casually, as if it is normal to be this forward and weird to complete strangers. I think its interesting when such people are so self confident.

We got there pretty early so we played pool and watched the Olympics to kill time. I got carded TWICE in the course of the evening, and BOTH times I wasn't even trying to buy a drink! I was just sitting around. I know I look like I'm 15, but gosh, it's still annoying to be questioned all the time...

I can't recall everything that made this night weird, just that it was "full" (full = 6 people) of people who seemed incapable of a normal interaction. Every conversation I had / overheard was just completely strange. Including the sign in the womens' bathroom that said "cameras for graffiti and surveillance only."

The show..was interesting. Their PA wasn't great and there was only one monitor and it was back by the drums...Yeah. Afterward, somehow, we broke into singing Miss Ohio...to ourselves. lol so weird. Actually, there is more I could say, but honestly, I'm writing this about 4 days later.

I do remember that we drove through the night, through the mountains to try to get closer to Portland...It was a long, windy drive. Wish I'd slept through more of it actually. It was kiiiind of crazy.

BUT we made it, stayed at a hotel, woke up late and headed to Portland.

Day 6 - Aug. 11 - Monday night

Day 6 - Aug. 11 - The show

San Franscisco! I'm writing this a few days later than the actual day 6, so I'd like to make this brief. Then again, I say that nearly every time and they always end up being rather long...But anyway, the van made it up all the hills without a big struggle! Annnd we found a parking spot on the street just around the corner from our venue. That is great luck considering how busy SF is and how huge our van is.

We played at Cafe Du Nord with Lazurus and Tiny Vipers, who has joined us on the road for a few dates. Jesy is her name. She is about my height and about my size with a few non discreet tattoos. She makes beautiful music. And she is well liked by us all.

The show went pretty well. We had a good sound check and people came! That's always nice. Somehow, almost everywhere we wind up, people we know come waltzing through the door. Travis' girlfriend flew in and surprised him and Mike's brother showed up. Kinda funny. I don't really remember what we did after this...I think we stayed with Mike's friend who in college was in an 80s cover band called Drying off Grandpa. lol I don't really know what else to say about that. haha. He had a very nice apartment and left it to us for the night. People are so nice.

Eureka, California is weird.

I've been carded TWICE already, while within this bar.

Strange people are lurking around outside.

Half of the people that passed me smelled of pot.

RIGHT after we walked in, strange people were hitting on all the girls with us.

I don't really know what to think of this town...

I'll tell you all about San Francisco another day.

Wish us luck.

Day 6 - Aug. 11 - Monday

Nicole and I woke up at 9:45 and slowly got ready. We slept in the bedroom of a little girl named Frances. She had a pretty cool doll house set up full of cute little people. Frances also apparently loves to draw. She had crayon colored drawings hanging everywhere. Alex (Hooch), while waiting for sleep we wondered which of her pictures would be your favorite. I think we decided on a shaky looking boat she drew with giant alphabet letters riding inside. My favorite was her awesome looking map of north america, labeled and everything. We also wondered why Frances had a lot of pictures of herself in her room. Anyway, no one cares about this but me. We ate breakfast at this bakery filled with fair-skinned soap opera looking women who appeared to very comfortable, like they don't need to work..ever again comfortable. I'm sure seeing us walk in must've been like some kind of traveling show to them.

Brian and I shared a bag of $2 Day old pastries while everyone ate up and waited for their coffees to wake them.

California is beautiful. It's so different up here already. The hills are a little less green but the land is golden brown. And for a while, all we could see to our left was a stretch of infinite blue pacific ocean. It was gorgeous. The air is pretty cool, but the second you come down the mountains the heat reminds you that it is summer. I love it.

Alright, it's been a long stretch of writing for me. We've been listening to a band called Through Me The Statue and we just finished the "All is Well" album by Sam Amidon. We are stopped at a gas station about 44 miles from our next stop, an In and Out Burger. But before I go, I should mention that in Pismo Beach, Cali., we walked into a Chevron gas station playing Sigur Ros. That is ridiculously rare, so Rob talked to them and gave them a Balmorhea CD. Turns out the guy had a few Balmorhea tracks on his ipod that a friend had given him, and when we walked back in he was playing "Attessa."

Also, Sean, I took a picture of an ad inside for an energy drink called "Get Crunk!" and I thought you should know. haha.



Until next time,
-Aisha

Day 5 - Aug. 10 - Sunday

I have digressed, quite heavily. In the morning, we continued through california, stopped for food and then headed to the beach in Santa Monica. This was my favorite part of the day. I love love the ocean, maybe more than any other aspect of the outdoors. There's something about its vastness and its strength that gets me.







I walked out to the water just to get my feet wet at first and then was easily persuaded to just jump in. So I did, fully clothed. I let the waves carry me and the salt scratch my throat. The water wasn't as cold as I'd remembered from the year before. I stood soaked in the sand grinning waiting to dry.
I wish the ocean wasn't so far from my home.


We drove down a crowded highway and arrived at a venue with locked doors. No one answered the phone, and even after we'd eaten dinner and come back it was still empty at 8pm. So what's a band to do? Go buy beer.

We walked to a store, came back, and finally things were going. We met the other band we were playing with, who were really nice. Ann, Rob's sister came with some friends, as did Ben who Trapdorea stayed with when we played at the Calvary Church in New York City during our last tour. Mike, Travis, Taylor and Rob had friends come to see us so we hung around in the darkened parking lot laughing and talking until brian went on.

Around midnight, twas finally time for Balmorhea to play. We spent forever setting everything up, only to find out the piano, both acoustic guitars and my violin weren't coming through the PA. awesome. Frustrated, we surrendered and played an acoustic set. The crowd gathered round and we did well for the circumstances. They seemed to like it a lot and could actually hear everything, which was cool. set: New Acoustic song, En route, New Banjo song, and Cabbage Town. We ended with the second half of "Settler" (or what you may know as the clapping song). Gets 'em every time. It's always a winner.



Post show things got really silly. Megan and Nicole spontaneously jumped into funny dances to music we made by singing. By the way, Meg's role is the self-declared motivator. She comes around to each of us after the show and tells us how great we did.

"How do we respond? Do we all say the same thing?" I asked her.

Meg: "Well, Nicole always giggles. Aisha always proudly accepts. Mike always accuses me of being drunk. and Rob just says no." haha. In the car, Rob finished out his day of driving as we listened to a lot of Modest Mouse and sang along in between sleeping. I remember laughing a lot and talking about Snick and old nickelodeon shows. My favorite moment was looking to my left and seeing Mike sneakily emerging from the back, wide-eyed, grinning and leaning well over the second row of seats, his back nearly touching the van's ceiling. After a slew of funny comments he said he was just trying to keep awake. Thats surely a different way of accomplishing that goal.

After the show we drove to Santa Barbara, the land of rich people, huge homes and Oprah's house hidden behind thick tall trees. We divided up the rooms and slept. Tomorrow, San Francisco.

Lets talk about Day 4 - Aug. 9 - Saturday

hey, don't be afraid to leave a comment if you've got words to share. Just sign your name at the bottom so I know who you are. Or, be anonymous! Do what you feel!

Lets start off by saying that last night (Sat) was pretty weird. But every tour has at least one weird one. Hopefully, we got ours outta the way. I don't even know the name of the coffee shop, but I do know that the walls were sponge-painted deep red and filled with enough furniture to form at least three living room set ups. If Robs family hadn't showed up, we'd be playing for ourselves and the kitchen staff...and the band that played before us and yelled obscenities peppered with phrases that sounded like they came from a "Rock Star Vernacular For Dummies" Book. "Isn't it great to play shows when you're completed waaaaaasted??!"...

They weren't blind, so I know they saw the table of older adults and grandparents sitting right in front of them.

awkward. glad I was outside.

Anyway, we left feeling strange and decided to drive as far as we could through the night. Nicole and I kept things lively in the van with assorted oldies and Motown selections paired with our vocal accompaniment. Twas fun. After much heat and a few hours, we made it to the California border. We found a motel 6 and settled in for the night.

However, we couldn't go to bed without first watching lots of bad 3am television. Rob requested Cops. That show has become a soapbox in my head. Who decided to make a spectacle of the lives of poor inner city Americans? There is a lot of crap on the tube that late. Lots of informercials, like Nuwave the crock-pot like cooker that magically prepares food at what seems to be a cancerous pace. It makes an ENTIRE turkey in TWO hours...that is NOT normal, nor can it be anywhere near the realm of healthy. It's basically a way to cook without actually doing anything at all. The next channel had a weight loss miracle potion with the slogan of "Eat more, exercise less." And as if that weren't absurd enough, it claims to help you loose a large amount of weight in only 6 weeks. Late night infomercials are very telling of the state of America.

We want it all without lifting a finger. We are too lazy now to make our own meals. We are too lazy to even leave a turkey in the oven for a few hours (because that takes sooo much effort). We didn't want to bother running in the outside world, so we made treadmills. We couldn't eat right, so we created diet foods. And somewhere along the way, we lost hope in the idea of accomplishing anything by trying. We put so much worth on the look of our bodies, yet we don't care enough to work for a build that is created BY working. When did we decide that we were so powerless that work is futile?