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So, get this. After the Chico gig, we drove through the night (again) to get to Port­land to meet up with a friend of the band’s and also just to take it easy for a lit­tle while before head­ing to the show in Rich­land. I was stoked to check out Port­land because I’d never been to these hip Pacific North­west­ern cities before, and it was cool to check the place out. But in decided to spend our three free hours there, we skipped check­ing our Crater Lake and, more sig­nifi­icantly, that giant rock from the Goonies. So then we drove for hours more into Rich­land, WA (the show here is in a Chi­nese Restau­rant called Ray’s Golden Lion) one to dis­cover… we have the wrong fuck­ing day.

The show is fuck­ing tomor­row. We could have stayed in Port­land. Or even in Chico for that mat­ter. And seen Crater Lake. And gone to the Goonies rock. We could have all done those things. Instead, we went to Taco Bell and then Wal­greens, then got kinda toasted in a motel room and watched four hours on The First 48 on A&E. Where’s the glamor? Where??

Ok, so some other thing’s also hap­pened. First off, I’ll tell you that if ever find your­self in Yreka, CA at about 4 in the morn­ing and you need to take a num­ber two, you’re going to have a prob­lem. There’s one pub­lic toi­let about in all of town at about that time – a Shell sta­tion – and I sat by the door in the freez­ing cold morn­ing air for like 35 min­utes this morn­ing wait­ing for a trucker who snatched the key like sec­onds before I could to fin­ish wash­ing his boots. I had to go so bad. Oh my god. Just think­ing about now is painful.

The rea­son I was so backed up was because I had been the only one awake/​sober after the Chico show, and drove from across a great swath of North­ern Cal­i­for­nia includ­ing Shasta National For­est, Shasta Lake Recre­ation Area, the Shasta River, Mt. Shasta City, and Mt Shasta itself – a huge area – almost all of it with nowhere to really stop. I’ll say though that even in the dark it was breath­tak­ingly beau­ti­ful. Not as beau­ti­ful as Ore­gon was in the day­light though. The ele­va­tion was about 4000 feet, and boreal moun­tain­tops were hid­den by fog just as the sun was ris­ing. It was one of the most amaz­ing sites I’ve ever seen. And then Drew took over the dri­ving and I passed the fuck out.

Also, Bryan has sus­tained an injury so dis­gust­ing that hav­ing expe­ri­enced first­hand, I have to share you out and ruin what­ever snack you’re eat­ing while you’re read­ing this. I guess there’s some­thing about the shape of his bass that makes it so he’s con­stantly scratch­ing him­self up against it. So, after seven or eight days of sus­tained dam­age, the thing has turned into a giant dis­gust­ing cyst. We went to Wal­greens to fig­ure out what he should use to treat it and ended up leav­ing with antibi­otic cream, band-​​aids, and an ace ban­dage. But Brian decided to take mat­ters into his own hands. He was deter­mined to pop the fuck­ing thing, and so he and Drew, the Jonbenet’s drum­mer, headed into the bath­room to do just that.

They were in there for about 20 min­utes. Mike, his girl­friend Marlen and I tried not pay atten­tion to the hor­ri­ble scream­ing com­ing from behind the door. And then, after some­thing of a crescendo, mike emerged, explain­ing that when the thing popped, it squirted straight up into the air, almost the ceil­ing. I then got a clipse of Bryan turn­ing on the shower, blood run­ning down his entire arm. It was the most dis­gust­ing thing I think I have ever wit­nessed. Ever. And I share it with you, my dear read­ers. I was so sick that I couldn’t bring myself to take a pic­ture. And if I had, I prob­a­bly wouldn’t have the guts to ever actu­ally look at it again. Tomor­row we’re mak­ing jack­ass go to the fuck­ing doctor.

I want to apol­o­gize for how quickly these posts are writ­ten and for the lack of links. I’ll do bet­ter on that front in the future. But now it’s bed­time! So Peace!

Posted on Friday, May 23rd, 2008 at 4:48 am

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5 Responses to “Tour Diary: Day 3: No Fucking Way”

1. star Says:
   May 23rd, 2008 at 3:41 pm

   I was born in Pasco, next to Rich­land. I’m absolutely sorry that of any place to be stuck an extra day, it was Rich­land. Fuck­ing hor­ri­ble. What’d you end up doing?

2. Greg Says:
   May 23rd, 2008 at 3:46 pm

   Haha, that’s awe­some, Star. We’re actu­ally hav­ing an ok time, we’re on our way to sit by the river and I think drink beer. Is that some­thing close to the native Tri-​​Cities expe­ri­ence? We want to be as authen­tic as we can.

3. star Says:
   May 23rd, 2008 at 6:19 pm

   Between that and the Golden Lion, you’re pretty much covered.

4. Catherine Lacey Says:
   May 23rd, 2008 at 8:22 pm

   Ureka! Isn’t that where they found gold? There is a very good novel set in Ureka called the Loss of Leon Meed.
   It’s rad.

5. Greg Says:
   May 30th, 2008 at 6:13 pm

   I’m not sure if Yreka Ureka and Eureka are all the same place. Maybe we should look it up. but if they are, then yes.

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