Since we ended up on a farm, the choice to sleep on a rug in the kitchen, which happened to be next to a garbage can filled with half eaten pizza crusts and God-knows-what else turned out to be a fantastic idea, especially since every time a door was opened the previous night a battalion of flies decided it liked the indoors better. Jimmy’s Charleston alarm was set for 9:30, but I was up by 6 trying to escape that horrific buzzing. Also, a mosquito bit my lip the night before. Who does that?
Max got up shortly after and found me on the couch in the other room, which, of course, was also infested with flies. He looked at me in disgust and said “bzz.” I laughed. As he looked out the window in the kitchen, he saw the most adorable kitten in the world (honestly) waiting for his momma. “Oh, my God,” he said. “The kitten’s momma just brought him a mouse.” His face made all kind of contortions before it settled on “horror” as he watched the most adorable fluff ball on Earth devoured a still living mouse. We didn’t want him anymore.
Once we left the house, our first accomplishment was getting lost down a dead end, turning across Ms. Mulligan’s lawn. After we got down the road a bit, I, in my infinite wisdom and incomparable memory, came to the conclusion that I, yes, definitely, left my pillow. The kitten was waiting for us on the front porch. Back in the van, I had a Ho Bath, which, for the uninitiated, consists of rubbing a Wet-One first on your face, then pits, then privates. It didn’t make me feel much better.
Our first stop was the gas station as you roll into town on your way from Minot, the big wooden one with crazy showers and arcade games. I got some coffee, grabbed a Cliff bar, and walked back out to the van. Jimmy, who did what any normal human being does at 10 am on a Wednesday morning at a gas station in a foreign city: he bought a goddamn Katana. So far, the DOOB Weapon List 2009 consists of a bayonet and a katana. We’re looking for some cheap guns, probably in Wisconsin.
Poplar’s Music was next, since Andy forgot the bass distortion in Minot. We met up with a bunch of bikers riding from New Hampshire to Vancouver, B.C. for some fair housing charity. We exchanged stories and pleasantries, and Charlie decorated their gear trailer. We followed them out to the interstate, waved goodbye, and started towards Duluth.
It’s hard to describe how warped your perception of time gets on the road. I don’t know how truckers do it, seeing as it’s probably not humanly possible to ingest as much caffeine as is needed to keep me awake. The van usually equals naptime, or read time (David Foster Wallace ftw). It’s really difficult to keep me entertained in such a small space, and, being a sort of claustrophobic guy, I can’t stand to be alive (or, more accurately, conscious) in a van for that long. Andy, in addition to being a bass playing machine, is also a driving machine, some sort of chauffer-bot. Around two in the afternoon, I made some remark about how, three years ago, we met these bikers outside of Poplar’s Music. I feel like I’ve been gone that long.
Also, it’s damn near disgusting how many chain restaurants and stores there are all across rural U.S. I would condemn society somehow, maybe ask what that says about this culture, but, in the three days we’ve been gone, we’ve eaten at Denny’s, filled up at the BP a few times, and visited a shopping mall. Shame on them, maybe, but even more shame on us.
Duluth is a beautiful city, much bigger than I’d imagined. Mr. Tomtom, in addition to telling us that a lovely patch of forest to our right was a coffee shop, directed us towards the city center in rush hour traffic. New York should be fun, if that was any indication of horrific, trailer hauling interstate traffic. Tomtom’s incredible understanding led us to the middle of a residential district. According to him, we were playing a show in somebody’s house, and not an art store. Moron.
Charlie, Jimmy and I had to pee, and I can honestly say that that was the worst I’ve ever had to go in my life. Two cups of coffee and a few bottles of water don’t bode well for an already notoriously small bladder. We took care of it, and that’s all that needs to be said about that.
After a lot of goddamn horrifying (word of the day: horror) driving, we wound up at the venue, a coop art supply store called Bohemia Arts (Andy says “Leukemia Farts”). We met up with Mike, who toured with Uh-Oh through Minot a while back, and got into the back of the venue. Amazing paintings were all over the walls, and after checking out the neighborhood a bit, we went to Pizza Luce, the first real meal I’ve had since leaving Minot, Vegan to the core, and nobody even looked at me funny.
The show was a good time in retrospect, but, since the Ooblecks were first, it was hard to gauge what kind of audience turned up. A few people were nodding, smiling, but for the most part we felt out of place. Same with the D.O., but once the rest of the bands started, we found out why everybody in a three block radius had a Black Flag tattoo. I haven’t seen dancing like that in a long, long time. I also haven’t seen pink tiger striped spandex shorts on a drummer ever.
We packed everything up, went back to Pizza Luce (when in Rome), and made our way to Mike’s house. Time flows normally only after we play, and after talking to Becky for a while, I crashed on a futon next to another Krazy goddamn Kat.
