fucked the dog - finale....uuuuuh finale

the only reason why i made this in 2 parts is because its so fucking long.
so, where was i? oh yeah....

so we thought, lets make some calls and see if we can find someone to fill in for us until we get to southern california, where our drummer lives. we had 3 shows we needed a fill in for. monday - reno. tuesday - sacramento. wednesday - fresno. by the time i got cell phone service, it was 3pm on sunday. i called phil (among lots of other people) from the band 5 victims 4 graves. they are from sacramento. i told him the situation and i asked him "do you think your drummer would be down to help us out?" he was like, "nah, probably not man, but give it a shot anyways." he gae me his phone number. i have never talked to this guy before in my life, i had no idea if he even knew who our band was. i called the number that phil gave me and to my suprise, jake answered right away. i told him what was up and asked him if he would be down to fill in. he basically responded with "wait, how did you get my number?" we talked a little bit more and he said, "yeah dude, ill take some time off work and help you guys out, a friend of mine has your cd and i will learn about 4 songs by the time you get here." STOKED!!! so we drove to sacramento, dropped off shit for brains at the airport (good fucking riddance) got directions to jakes house, picked him up, booked time a a rehearsal studio, and had practice from 10 pm to 1 am. let me tell you....Jake FUCKING RULES at drums. he had 4 songs down perfect. i couldnt believe it. such a rad dude as well. we dropped him off, then went to hang out with our friend Jim rice and his girlfriend amy. they made us some awesome vegan blueberry muffins. so so so good. the next day, we went to del taco, ate some food, bought some drumsticks for jake at guitar center, picked jake up, practiced for another 2 hours, then headed over to reno. we were really lucky to be on this show. we had a hard time getting a show this day and i called my friend brandon from the band, 1618, and he got us hooked up with this show. ceremony played, as well as All Teeth (these guys RULE) and a really good locl band called, Land Locked. the show went REALLY well. although we only played 4 songs, we sounded SO GOOD. Jake really helped us out a ton. it was a great show for us.

we stayed the night at my parents house, and my mom made a rediculous amount of food for us for breakfast. after we ate, we headed down to sacramento to play at the R5 record store with Pressure point. i fucking love that band. they are so good and such awesome guys. again, our set went over very well, short and sweet, but really good. everyone had a great time. we went back to Jims house to hang out. then walked to the store to buy tortillas and beans. on the way back to his house, jim pointed out to me that peets coffee leaves unsold baked goods outside their door when they closed. i didnt believe him and he said "whatever, go see for yourself" so i did, and he was right. so fucking awesome. there was so much good shit in there. scones, tiger tails, cookies. amazing. the next day we at at a really good vegan thai place. then picked up jake one last time and headed to fresno. we got to Kats house really early, so we decided to roam around through the set of Road warrior. we were throwing rocks through windows in this OBVIOUSLY abandoned building. and these 2 dudes in a plumbing truck pull up looking like they are ready to either rape or murder us and say " you cant be throwin rocks and breakin stuff here. this is private property" weird, but whatever, we left, and went back to kats house. jeremy, the guy who hooked us up with the show came to meet us there. he informed us that it would be a very small turn out, so rather than playing outside lke last time, we will play inside this old fucking shack in the backyard that is lit by christmas lights and looks like tons of people have been murdered there....awesome. it was SUCH a fun show. kids were actually circle pitting and moshing for us in this tiny ass room. so cool. we sold a shirt to literally everyone who showed up, and got a few donations. i love those kids out there. always show us a good time.

rather than driving back to SAC to bring jake home, he suggested that we just buy him a train ticket. that was really cool. it saved us tons of time and money. so, the next day, we are hanging out with jake, waiting for his train to come (by the way, we stayed on a fuckin grape farm that night, and the house we stayed in had about 20 cats....moving on) and i get a text message from verizon wireless, saying that my last payment was made with an electronic check, that bounced.......AWESOME. so i called sergio and told him "dude, the payment you made on my cell phone didnt go through...you bailing on us cost us 300 dollars, so the way i see it is, you owe me 600 dollars" he replies with, "i dont have any money...you can sell my drums if you want." (later on, once the tour was over, i found out that they werent even his drums. he was borrowng them from a friend. what a fuckling pile of dog shit) i was able to borrow some money to make my payment and not have to pawn the drums right away. we took jake to the train station and sent him back home....we would have been SO FUCKED with out jake....that guys rules so hard...

our next show was in cathedral city in southern california. it was in a tile shop of all places. it was really cool being so close to home...but lets cut to the chase....the show SUCKED. I had huge expectations for this show....there were lots of kids, and it was a great night...for whatever reason, they just didnt like us. whatever....it happens.

the last show of the tour was at my favorite place...the che cafe in san diego. such a good night......all of my friends from home were at the show, it was a beautiful night, and it was with great bands. Verse, Killing The Dream, Rotting Out and at the last minute, our good friends Masterpiece got added to the show. we opened the show, had a great set and then i got to see some of my favorite bands...it was a perfect ending to a great tour. Thanks so much to Grave Maker and everyone else that helped us out or hung out with us....It was truly an amazing 5 weeks.

fucked the dog - finale part 1

we got to the venue in witchita at 7pm. there was nobody there. no promoter, no kids, nothing. not even any fliers for our show. bailey made some phone calls, and was somehow able to get ahold of someone who wasnt the promoter, but at least knew what was going on...basically, the show got cancelled without any notice from the promoter. from what the people on the phone told us, the promoter didnt put any effort into the show, and figured nobody would come, so why bother...he was right, nobody came, but it also wasnt promoted. what a piece of shit. we met up with some local kids who were really awesome and they showed us a good time. we all went to this taco truck that was parked in the parking lot of a covienience store. fuckin weird. but really cheap and really good. we walked to a grocery store to get candy and treats and energy drinks, then decided to drive through the night to cannon city, colorado. this was also a town that looked as if it were stuck in the 1950's. matt, eric and i went to a diner so matt could get a hamburger. i swea to god, it was straight out of the movies. oh yeah, and we went to a thrift store that was owned and operated by....fuck, what are those people called that dont use cars or electricity.....you know, like from that movie, King Pin, starring woody haroldson...ah well, you get the idea. fuck im so bad at telling stories. but i digress. it was a weird fucking thriftstore. we went to the venue once we saw the promoter was there. it was like a vfw hall. awesome. it was a friday night, so TONS of kids came out. i think there was something like 150 kids there. we played with some AWESOME bands that night. Bankrobber, Crooked ways, and Killing Kings. this show was so awesome and full of energy. crooked ways covered an opivy song. stoked. after the show, i guess some girl attacked john or something. i dunno, it was werid, but im gonna fck up that story too, and it will just bore you to death.....basically, john got in a fight with a drunk chick and it was awesome. so anyways, the REAL party was when we all went to dennys afterwards. i think there was something like 25 of us. and we were all giving the waitress a hard time. but she was a good sport and gave us TONS of free food. we ALMOST had her convinced to let us play a show inside dennys. that shit would have been awesome. she actually said "ok, you guys can do it" but then a bunch of cops walked in, and she was like "on second though, get the hell out of here" whatever....would have been so cool. we drove through the night again and made our way to steve's house from killing kings. the place was awesome. super nice apartment in denver, colorado. we slept there over night and in the morning, steve and i went to the grocery store to get a bunch of food. we came back and steve and his girlfriend made all the food for us. waffles, eggs, fruit, it was awesome...probably the best breakfast of the tour. we hug out and watched bad movies all day. i slept some more, then we made our way to the show. the venue was at a pizza place. stoked. i guess it was more like a venue/pizza place/bar. pretty cool place. it was killing kings cd release show, as well as the band, eyes fall open. the show was cool. not so good for us. but it was still a fun time none the less. there was this really awesome/weird looking zombie dude at the show with a pink mohawk and tons of gross make up on. after the show, i found out, his name is Maris the Great. and he kills bands. check it out. www.maristhegreat.com so cool. so anyways, he came and hang out with us for the rest of the night. we ate at a place called, Illegal Petes. its this really awesome burrito place. kind of expensive, but way worth it. one of the most delicious burrito i have ever consumed. we walked around downtown denver for a while. maris was kinda freakin people out a little bit. pretty awesome good time. once again, we drove straight through the night to go to salt lake city, utah.

this was a big day for lots of us for a few reasons. brians parents live in salt lake city. grave maker was buying a new van/trailer in salt lake city, and matt and i have a great friend that lives in salt lake named Rory. so, we were all really looking forward to getting there. Rory met us at brians parents house, and they had TONS of food ready for us. it looked like thanksgiving. it was so rad. they even had lots of vegetarian food. and some really good pie. it was so cool. after eating our faces off, matt, eric, rory and i went to go check out rory's house. somehow within 10 minutes of being there, i ended up being naked in rory's bed. the thing that really sucks for rory is, well, seeing me naked, plus i smelled fucking HORRIBLE. i hadnt showered in a few days. sorry bout that dude. but at least it got some good laughs. after i took a shower and got some rest, we went on a nature hike of sorts. it was so incredible. mountains and waterfalls and streams and trees everywhere. so beautiful. it statred raining, so we high-tailed it out of there and met up with some of rory's friends. we didnt have much time, so we basically just went to 7-11, then to del taco then to the venue for the show. this show was REALLY strange. being that we were in salt lake city, and we are a hardcore band, i assumed the show was going to be full of hardline, hardcore straight edge thugs. turns out, they only go to tough guy shows these days, so we were safe. haha. it was quite an eclectic show. the headlining band was called, Boom Boom Kid. they were from argentina. they were like this ska/punk hardcore band....really good actually. entertaining at least. and a bunch of really weird punk bands that seemed like they were stuck in the early nineties played. our set went over ok. nothing special. same with grave maker. it was a weird weird night. afterwards, matt, rory, eric and i went to get some mexican food, and harrased some locals mormons. not in a bad way. then slept, ultra hard.

the next day, was a sad day. we parted ways with our friend rory, and drove seperately to our last show of the tour with grave maker. the show was in twin falls, idaho. we got to the town really early, so we did some sight seeing. idaho has lots of really cool nautre shit, so we took in in. we also went to a grocery store and saw some local kids that were planning on going to the show (if their moms let them of course) and we went to little ceasers pizza. this was a really small town. the kind where there is only one main road going through town that has everything on it. after messin around for a while, we drove to the venue, which was also a bar and resteraunt. we pulled up and saw all these dudes with tattoos all over their faces! nuts. i thought for sure this show would have tons of fights. everything was really cool. the opening band was compiled of 3 kids, all under the age of 13. their parents were all at the show, giving them support, AND money to buy shirts from the touring bands. , then a band called pricsilla played. they are a really bad ass christian hardcore band with 2 singers, tons of energy and hell heavy break downs. really good band. our set went over pretty well. people are REALLY fucking rough in twin falls. im really suprised a fight didnt break out. but i guess it was all in good fun. i made a really sappy and homo-erotic speech about how awesome the guys in grave maker are, and thanked them for sharing the road with us. oh yeah, we bought them a cake from the store. it was awesome. vic, the promoter of the show gave it to them for us while i was making my rediculous speech. all in all, it was a great last show with those guys. their set totally went off. one of the best nights for them. we went to a local diner after the show where i had the worst oatmeal of my entire life. but it was a fun time. oh yeah, there was this HORRIBLE drunk girl in her mid-30's at the diner, and bailey had her convinced that grave maker was actually the band, sum-41 and i was their rich and well endowed tour manager. naturally, she wanted to hump, so bailey took it upon himself to give her my phone number and as soo as we left the diner, i was getting all kinds of weird and creepy text/voice/picture messages from her.....thanks bailey.

the next show of our tour was in Portland, OR. i was looking forward to this show more than any other show of the tour because, it was our first time playing in a basement in a house (arctic circle pit fuckin rules!) AND we got to play with Broadway Calls, one of my favorite bands. this was one of the best days/shows of any tour i have been on yet. as a matter of fact, it was such an awesome experience that it made me fall in love with portland, and now desire to live no where but there. we got to jesse's house early, so we figured we would just walk around and kill some time. jesse came out of the house and caught us before we took off. he showed us where this awesome vegetarian taco truck was down the street from his house. i got 2 tacos and a mexican soda for less than 5 bucks. so cool. matt went to a thrift store across the street and bought a really bad ass adidas jacket for 10 bucks. i was bugging jesse with all my questions about the bands Tragedy and Broadway Calls. but he was really cool, and showed us a really good time. we walked around a little bit more, then went back to the arctic circle pit to get ready for the show. i set up merch on a washer and dryer, and a little work bench he had set up...pretty sweet. i went outside to call my parents, and all of a sudden, 2 familiar faces rode up on their bikes. Savage, a girl i met last time we played in the northwest, and jeff from vegan this. its always nice to see frinedly familiar faces when it is unexpected. apparently jeff just recently moved to portland and had been hanging out with savage. small world right? so then, im catching up with those 2, shootin the shit and all, then my friend elyssa from san diego walks up! what the hell? and apparently she ALSO recently moved to portland...so i start catching up with her, and i hear someone say, "hey wes!" i turn around, and its my friend, Jade, from LA. this was fuckin intense, like straight out of the twilight zone. all these people i know have migrated up to the beautiful city of Portland. Friendly Dave (we stayed at his house during our first tour) came to the show, and showed lots of support for us...he is such a great guy. after we played, a band called Bridge and Tunnel played. they are from new york. such a great band. they reminded me a little of hot water music, but with dualing male and female vocals. they blew me away. then broadway calls played. it was one of the best sets i have ever seen a band play. they have SO MUCH energy and played flawlessly. we were so lucky to get to play this show. one of the best nights of my life. after the show, we went to this really bad ass vegetarian hot dog place (i dont remember the name) josh and ty from broadway calls were there. i got a hto dog based on josh's recomendation and it was great. here's the weird thing. it was also a bar. my friend elyssa was with us, and she is under 21. so, no big deal right? we will just eat outside. so we all ordered our food, and they brought hers out in a bag and said, you cant eat that outside of our place, you hav to leave because you are under 21. fucking rediculous. i never heard of anything like that. but whatever, every place has their rules i guess. so we all piled in the van, and made our way to elyssa dorm where we were gonna try to get some sleep, but her roomate was asleep and its a tiny place so we just slept in the van in the parking lots of the dorms. the next day, we drove to Astoria, OR, where they filmed the movie, Goonies. it was cool, we checked out the goonies house and all the different places where they did shit for the movie there...it was awesome. astoria was a really nice town. very small and intimate. the cool thing about oregon is, on the coast, the forest meets up with the ocean. so its like hella redwood trees and next thing you know, its just water as far as the eye can see. oh yeah, and we saw a bald eagle flying. fucking epic.

after portland, we drove up to seattle. i was NOT looking forward to this show. the last time we played in seattle, we ate it, hard. no one liked us. we were definitely not welcome haha. this time, the show was at a house called, the Jolly roger. the dude who booked us there is named Cameron. this guy is so fucking solid. we got to his house, i never met him before, and he let us all in and said "just hang out and make yourself at home. im gonna take off for a little bit." he literally let a bunch of strange dudes just kick it at his house while he was gone....who does that? the house was really cool. he had laminated posters up on the ceiling, a huge fuckin flat screen tv and tons of good dvds. the show started right on time. it was a free show, so they were asking for donations. someone made cupcakes for us, i dont even know who, but they were hella good. (the guys in my band are gonna hate me for saying "hella" so much. haha) between every band, cameron walked around with a jar and made everyone give donations. all the bands that played were really good. all real different too. the headlining band got their set cut shirt because the cops came...busted! but they ruled hard. they were called enemy camp. reminded me a lot of late nineties metal core. really fuckin awesome. our set went over really well. everyone at the show was SO nice. after the show got shut down, we set up our merch tables and sold quite a bit. especially to this one drunk guy. it was awesome. we gave cameron a poster to add to his collection in the living room. the jolly roger is definitely one of my all time favorite places. i cant wait to go back there.

our next show was in southern oregon at SOU. south oregon university. we got hooked up with this show through jesse from portland. i posted a message on the northwest hardcore board, saying we needed a show in ashland/medford, and he called up his friened MACK ATTACK to hook us up...this night was interesting to say the least. the show was in a class room at the univeristy. i think about 8 people ended up coming. there was mack and his friend, mack's girlfriend and her friend. a skinhead named chad, then 3 other random people. turned out to be a really fun night. we were the only band to play, we played Ian Mackaye is an uncle tom 2 times. once was an encore specifically for mack. the microphone cord was long enough to reach all the way to the back of the room, so of course i ran around like an idiot. somehow, between donations and merch sales, we ended up making about 80 dollars. fuckin awesome. afterwards. mack treated us to some delicious taco bell, then we went back to his apartment to party. he showed us his record collection, then we watched the movie, smokin aces (which i only wanted to see because alicia keyes is in it) of course, i was the first one to fall asleep. blaaaaahhh. our whole time in oregon and seattle was an amazing experience. meeting jesse, mack and cameron was really really awesome. i love meeting new people in general, but it makes it so much better, when those new people are such awesome people. thanks guys!

we didnt have any shows for the next few days, so we did some sight seeing until our show in reno. remember when i said shit was gonna get worse with sergio? this is where it happens...

so, we are in arcata, CA. it was a sunday. our next show was on monday in reno with ceremony. its about noon on sunday, we are at a gas station, getting ready to leave arcata, and this kid, (sergio) comes out of the van, with tears in his eyes and says in his little ewok voice "hey guys ive got to go home. i have an unpaid traffic ticket and im being summoned to court. my parents REALLY want me to come home and take care of this." .....................................................................................................................................................................................
this CANT be serious right? i wish it wasnt. we tried reasoning with him. although he sucks at drums and he made everyone in the band hate him, we still needed him to finish the tour. we tried telling him "dude, its not a big deal, just call the court and reschedule the date. its not like thee is going to be cops waiting for you outside of your house if you dont go to court." he started crying, "i have to go home, my parents want me to come home" translation - "im a big fuckin spoiled baby, and im home sick, and mommy and daddy will buy me a last minute plane ticket that costs 1000 fuckin dollars to come home because i dont want to be on tour anymore." fucking busted....i couldnt believe it. i wanted to leave him at the gas station. but matt has too big of a heart for that. even though this kid was TOTALLY fucking us over, Matt, being basically a perfect human being, said "we have to do the right thing, we will take him to the airport." this was pretty much the only time i have ever been upset or frustrated with matt. i mean, he WAS right, and taking shit for brains to the airport was the right thing to do, but i was SO MAD about it. so, on our way to Sacramento to take fuck face to the airport, we started brainstorming about what to do. we REALLY didnt want to cancel our shows. some really good friends worked pretty hard to get the shows for us, and we wanted to figure SOMETHING out.

I like food. Food is good.

yesterday, for the most part consisted of eating, sleeping and reading. not too eventful. well, until Led got home from work anyways. Led's helper/maid/whatever you want to call her made breakfast for me. i had vegetarian sausage (frankfurts) from a can, oatmeal and bananas. the sausage was interesting to say the least. it almost had the consistency of tofu. less than firm tofu. it tasted really good. this was the first time i have ever eaten oatmeal without any sugar or flavoring or anything like that. it was comparable to only what i can imagine pourage would taste like. and feel like. it was pretty good, but just kinda threw me a curveball, because, i guess since im an average american, when i hear oatmeal, i assume its going to be instant flavored oatmeal that takes a few seconds to zap in the microwave and tastes like heaven. the bananas were fucking INSANELY good. apparently, the philippines is the number 1 exporter of bananas for the entire world (according to led. and i believe him.) the bananas i ate were those really small ones, that look like plantanes, but they arent plantanes (thank god) they are just miniature bananas. i guess since they are so small, they have more flavor and a much better consistency than your average banana. im siked to eat more of them today. as a matter of fact, i might go to the market and buy a shit ton of them. it will most likely be like 50 cents for a large quantity.

so, after i ate, i FINALLY took a shower. it felt so fuckin good. i wouldnt neccecarily call it a "cold" shower, but definitely not hot. i couldnt figure out how to change the temperature on the shower head without getting electricuted. you see, the shower head is connected to a pipe that is coming out of the wall and from another part of the wall, there are electrical wires that are taped to the pipe and connected to the shower head. i assume that the wires is what makes the water hot, but my assumptions are usually wrong. needless to say, water and electricity dont mix, and i got hella shocked when i touched it....haha. but it actually worked out for my benefit anyways because it was really hot out byt the time i took a shower, so the cold water felt amazing. im actually looking forward to taking another cold shower today.

if you know me personally, you'll know that im not much of a reader. i am currently reading my 3rd book. now, what i mean is, throughout my childhood, middle school, highschool, after graduating, i either faked through reading books, or just gave up halfway through. somehow during highschool, i was able to read the back of the book, MAYBE skim through some cliffnotes and write a spectacular book report. ive always hated reading. for our first international tour (central america) my good friend, Jim Rice gave me a book to read called, Of Mice And Men. it was a short book, and i had already seen the movie, so i knew the story well. i started reading it on the way home from costa rica, and i finished it at the airport during my layover in LA on the way to reno to see my folks. i was REALLY into that story and i loved the book. so i guess it was the first book that i voluntarily read all the way through. when i got to my parents house the next day, i started reading one of my moms books called, A Child Called It. i finished it, but i definitely noticed a decline in testosterone in my body after reading it. so anyways, my girlfriend let me borrow one of her books to read while im on this trip called, Extremely Close and Incredibly Loud. she didnt think i would even read it, so i was determined to finish it all the way through because i promised her i would. to my suprise, its been a really good way to pass the time. i enjoy the story a lot, and gives me something to do while i wat for my buddy led to come home from work so we can bro down.

speaking of bro-ing down, when Led came home from work yesterday, he changed out of his work clothes, and we headed towards the mall. i guess there are 2 malls in this town. the one we went to was fucking HUGE. 4 stories tall, NOT including the parking structure. and there are SO MANY american stores here, you wouldnt believe it. it was a really cool experience though. everything is very highly secured with tons of security guards. the funny thing is though, the security guards here ACTUALLY care about their jobs AND your safety! we drove into the parking structure, where they very nicley inspected the vehicle for bombs and other weapons. then, we walked up to the mall, and at the entrance, there were 2 security guards. one male and one female. they even had a desk at the entrance and signs, seperating the entrance line into 2 lines. one for male inspection and one for female inspection. its crazy though. at home, something like this would NEVER fly, because everyone would complain about how they are being treated like criminals and what not. but honestly, they are just protecting their shit, protecting their people, and making it a pleasurable shopping experience for everybody. especially during the holidays, the crime rate out here is through the roof, so i thought it was pretty cool that they had all the security. and like i said, they were insanely nice people for being security guards....and they are also very helpful. they know the whole mall like the back of their hands, so if you ask them where a particular store is, they are happy to tell you what floor it is on, what stores it is near, and how to get there. fuckin awesome.

we ate at S'barro pizza. we were going to get a pizza at yellow cab, but i only wanted to get one slice, and yellow cab doesnt sell byt the slice. the price differences and similarities are so crazy. i can nevr get used to it. usually things are WAY cheaper out here, but sometimes, more expensive. for instance, a small cheese pizza at yellow cab is 5 dollars. well, you can get a large pizza at little ceasers pizza back home for 5 dollars. so, i jus tfigured its due to the fact that its an american pizza compan, and you are paying for the shipping prices and what not...BUT we went to s'barro, and got a slice of pizza for 1.30. when you get a slice of s'barro pizza at home, its at the very least, 2.50. so, i dont understand it, but i will ALWAYS go for the cheaper pizza. its crazy how much these people care about other people, care about their jobs and just care about life in general. it really makes me feel like a piece of shit sometimes. check this out.....we went to dairy queen to get ice cream. all the empolyees were super enthused to serve us, and they were really fast and courteous and all that good stuff. if you go into a dairy queen in southern california, you know that it is definitely the exact opposite of that...in so cal, you isually leave a dairy queen wanting to kill someone. and on top of that, while we were enjoying our blizzards and/or hot fudge sundaes, they asked us to fill out a customer service sheet to tell them what we thought about their service and how it can be improved.....at a dairy queen! it was unreal.

its also hella populated out here. something like 14 million people, JUST in manila. so, it was really really busy at the mall. it was almost like shopping at south coast plaza in costa mesa on black friday, but instead of everyone being assholes and having fake boobs and suv's, it was all just really nice, regular people.

when we left the mall, we headed back to led's house to watch the movie, Dont mess with a Zohan. i definitely fell asleep during the first 10 minutes. i think i am still adjusting to the time difference. Matt is going to arrive today. i think around 1pm. im really siked to see him. im not sure what we are doing tonight, but im sure it will be fun. Led is SUCH an awesome guy and he is taking such good care of me. also, imelda (the girl who picked me up from the airport) is awesome and so much fun to hang out with.....its really nice being able to communicate with everyone because they speak such good english. im sure that since matt will be here tonight, we will have a great time and i will have more adventerous stories.

long live masterpiece

i woke up to the most awesome sound this morning

and by awesome, i DEFINITELY mean horrible. i woke up around 4am to the sound of a a female cat, in heat, basically sending out a mating call to all the possible neighborhood feline courtiers. it was similar to the sound of a woman who is pregnant with an alien being repeatedly stabbed in the stomach by the terminator. neither her nor the unborn alien will die, they just continue to scream in unbearable pain and anguish for the entire world to hear. aaaaaaaaand of course, the cats mating call doesnt so much attract male cats that want to hump as much as it annoys and aggravates the entire neighbor hood of dogs that in response to the screaming, start barking and howling. oh yeah, and you know how im scared of ghosts, paranormal, aliens, horror movies, etc etc? i definitely could have sworn this morning when i got up to see what was going on, that i saw the asian girl from that one horror movie....the grudge, in the bathroom for like a split second. so, needless to say, i couldnt fall back asleep. the funny thing is, i didnt even think that movie was scary. but i guess now that im in asia, its a lot more possible that some really weird and hot asian chick is constantly lurking in the dark corners, ready to kill me. its already so warm out today. oh yeah, Led gave me some bad ass t shirts that are too big for him. a hopeless records t shirt and a mr. T experience t shirt. fuckin awesome. i have a feeling that today will be an amazing day, full of fun and adventure. i was REALLY looking forward to taking a shower. buuuuuuut now im a little apprehensive about it.

i mean, i dont want that grudge chick bothering me. but i smell really bad. well, if i die in the shower, i lived a good life. goodbye forever.


wesley james sisk

Posting from Manila, Philippines. December 9, 2008

shits crazy. EVERYTHING is in english out here. billboards, street signs, bumper stickers.....everything. its VERY westernized. which is awesome because i get the best of both worlds....everything is cheap as fuck here. gas is .80 cents per gallon. a frappucinno at starbucks is like 1.50. i mean, for the locals, its all relative. the minimum wage here for an average worker is like 120.
00 per month. so, thats why everything is so much cheaper. when i arrived here it was about 89 degrees. fuckin crazy. when i was going to the train station in reno it was 36 degrees. oh yeah, and i already vomited today. it was a little embarrassing. but for whatever reason, my stomach doesnt agree with rice, and thats pretty much the main food here. so, i have THAT to look forward to. so, im hangin out with my new friend, LED, here it his house. its awesome. he has a cat named Keanu. named after the actor, keanu reeves. and a dog who hates me named trixie. its so awesome hanging out with my new friends led and imelda. tomorrow we are gonna eat pizza. so im obviously siked about that. ill have some free time tomorrow. oh yeah....right now, its 10:13 pm in the philippines and its 6:10 am back home. fuckin insane. and it took me 23 hours to get here from LA. hopefully tomorrow night i will have tons of good stories.

fucked the dog part 2

for the next 4 days, alex and Q drove us around, introduced us to all their friends, and basically just showed us a good time....if they were at work, the 3 of us would just go to the dollar theatre and watch a movie, or hang out in jack in the box for hours drinking water and surfing the internet on my laptop....

finally, Lopez, the owner of the transmission shop called us and told us the terminator was fixed....it cost 1300 bucks....we tried giving them 1000 and my guitar, but he said my guitar was ugly and he didnt want it...haha. oh well, it was worth a shot...

the next day was the last show of the mexico portion of the tour....it was in.......

Piedras Negras, MX

we drove down to mexico, just the 3 of us...the dudes in the red alert were going to come along, but they ended up having to work......the directions we got to the show were completely impossible to understand. they were all in spanish...we had a street name...thats it...no adress, just a street name....so we get to the border, go through all the checking of bags, trailer, blah blah blah......and we asked the border agents how to get to the street that we were looking for....we showed them the directions we had.......did i mention they spoke no english???
SOMEHOW, between the 3 of us, we were able to understand the hand motions they were giving us while telling us directions in spanish, enough to make it to the show with suprisingly little trouble..... the show was definitely in this kids backyard on a residential street....so cool...

sergio (our fill in drummer) was there before us....then our best friend Luis showed up....it was so awesome getting to see him again....he had good news and bad news for us....the bad news was, gravemaker couldnt make it to this particular show for whatever reason....the good news was, he got thr promoter to gaurantee us 150 bucks for the show, AND even better news, that luis was coming to the next 2 shows with us...STOKED!!! oh yeah, and he gave me and matt his band shirts....

we set up merch and waited for the show to start....there was at least 100 kids there...everyone was REALLY nice...since it was so close to the border, there were a few kids that spoke perfect english......that made things a little easier...the opening band only played cover songs....it was pretty cool...they played songs from bands like The Clash, sex pistols, Ramones, rancid.....pretty sweet....then a bunch of metal bands, then us.......this was our first show and the beginning of our nightmare of playing shows with sergio on drums....fortunately, we played through horrible equipment and the kids didnt care how bad we sounded because, it was hella embarassing....... he definitely pulled the songs off way better in practice before the tour than he did at the show....it was still a great show though...the kids were great...there was a group of girls that stood in the front and screamed the whole time as if our band was the beatles or something....after the show, we sold tons of merch, signed lots of autographs, took lots of pictures....oh yeah, and one of the girls that was in the front screaming the whole time, didnt want to stop taking pcitures with us, and as her friend was taking one of the pictures, this girl DEFINITELY french kissed me....and she didnt speak ANY english what so ever.....aaaaahhhhhh, only in mexico

later we ate a bunch of good food at a little hole in the wall then made our way back to the states....we got to the border check at about 2 am....of course they checked our bags, trailers, blah blah blah, and they sent luis to the main office to get his passport checked since he isnt a US citizen....he came back to the van and he looked like he had just seen a ghost....they fucking denied him entry into the US!!!!!!!!!!! what the fuuuuuck?????? they said he was supposed to have a permission slip of sorts to leave mexico....basically they just wanted money....so what we did is, bought luis a bus ticket from nuevo laredo, to laredo texas....they didnt give him any trouble there...

this is where things started going downhill. we made it back to texas, we met up with the dudes in grave maker at the hotel room that they stayed at, met the 2 new girls they had with them (weird) and made our way to pick up luis. after we picked up luis, we went to the bank to get all the money that we put in sergio's bank account. i put in 500, matt put in 400 and eric put in 100. so, we were of course, expecting sergio to withdraw 1000 dollars and disperse it between the 3 of us accordingly. to my suprise, sergio came back from the teller and said to me, in his voice that sounds like a mix between an ewok and a dying alien, "hey, uuhhh, i might be a little short paying you guys back all your money, i had to buy some shit in mexico" of course, at this point my blood is boiling like crazy. i try to keep cool and tell him, "look dude, if we dont go back to the van with 1000 dollars cash, there is going to be a problem....the problem of course being, YOU STOLE MONEY FROM US!" and his response was, "well, what was i supposed to do? i had to buy shit in mexico and i didnt have any money..." - you are probably asking yourself, "is this guy for real?" sadly, the answer is yes.....yes he is....so i said, "ok, how much money do you have?" he said, "530 dollars, but i can get the rest of the money by tomorrow" so i told him it was cool if he just gave matt and eric their money back, and i will wait for mine for the next day. no biggie, right? so, shit for brains, calls his mom, she tells him that she transfered 500 doallrs into his bank account.

since my bank account closed, due to the whole mexico fiasco, and even if it wasnt closed, there were none of my banks in the area, i asked sergio if i could just use his debit card that was linked to the bank account that his mom deposited money into, to pay my cell phone and insurance payments. he said "no problem" so i get hs card from him, call verizon wireless to make my payment, and they said that the card i tried using was DENIED. what the fuuuuuuck??? so, then he had his mom give him her savings account # and routing # so i could pay my cell phone payment, via electronic check from their account. i made the payment, it went through, its all good. then instead of going through all that hassle again for the insurance payment, he just gave me the rest of my money in cash. i wish i could say that was the end of the story, but by the time we get to arcata, CA, its going to open wide up again and get much worse.

the laredo show was AMAZING. definitely one of the best shows of the tour. a ska/punk band played, some other good hardcore bands played...and our boys in the Red Alert KILLED IT. they were so fuckin awesome...definitely check that band out. oh yeah, and i sang a song for them. 7 seconds, young til i die. (thanks guys!) and bailey played bass for one of their songs while Q, the bassist of red alert sang. we had a really great set that night. the kids were awesome, shit for brains pulled all the songs off good for the most part, it was just really really great. of course, grave maker was amazing as usual. it was so awesome having our frined luis with us. he made the show so much more fun. we sold TONS of shirts and cds that night. i think the most of the whole tour actually.

afterward we went to taco palenque, ate until we got sick, then slept our asses off.

we drove to mcallen texas the next day. this was almost as small of a turn out as the lubbock texas show. the opening bands were interesting to say the least. one of the bands did a good hatebreed cover. now, we cut our set down to about 6 songs because sergio could handle most of the songs on drums. and for the mcallen show, we basically only got to play 4 of those songs, because all of a sudden, he forgot almost ALL of the songs. so, we played an embarrassing 4 song set, and i basically left the venue, wanting to kill sergio, then of course kill myself. somehow, we still got paid good money, and ate at taco plaenque again for the last time, then slept at the promoters house. early the next morning, matt and i went to mcdonalds to get some iced coffee (have you ever had iced coffee from the fast food tyrants? if you havent, and you arent vegan, and you dont mind giving money to big corporations, i suggest you try it. its fucking delicious. otherwise, its probably not for you) and we went to get haircuts after that...which i regreted big time, because for some reason, the lady ended up giving me a marine cut, and i just dealt with it, as opposed to having her shave the rest of it off. matts haircut was much more pleasing to the eyes. but then again, matt is just way more pleasing tho the eyes than i am in general.

the show that night was in corpus christi texas. very small turn out. the people that DID show up were all really cool. we got free pizza. we played with the band, The Golden Age. they ruled really fucking hard. sold a few shirts, made new friends. pretty good night.

after that, we made our way to forth worth, texas. the show was supposed to be in dallas, but for whatever reason, it got moved. the venue was really awesome. it reminded me of the che cafe, but with out a kitchen. they had lots of graffitti and political propaganda and zines and shit like that. they also had what they call, the "free store" basically people just donate clothes, games, whatever, and you can take whatever you want for free. i took a pair of jeans that i later found out didnt fit me. the show was GREAT. so much better than the night before. somehow, i managed to convince a bunch of kids to get naked and mosh for us in exchange for free t shirts. oh yeah, they also had a rope swing in the middle of the venue. and bleacher seating. both of which got utilized. the local band from that show that really stuck out was called, Decades. SUCH a good band. kind of like a mix btween modern life is war and the suicide file, but more punk. after the show, we all ate at the waffle house. and austin, the guitarist of decades, PAID FOR ALL OF US TO EAT!!! this was insane...who does that? honestly? what a great guy. that night, abunch of dudes decided to go to this stripclub in fort worth that is owned by vinnie paul of pantera. apparently you get in for free if you have a valid and current tour laminate. those of us that arent into strip clubs (including me) , stayed behind to sleep. i guess by the time they got there, it was closed for the night anyways.

after parting ways with our new friends in Decades, we went to Altus, Oklamhoma. this show was really cool. the venue was in the basement of a comuntiy center that they called, the blue room. because all the walls were painted blue. AAAAAAAND the room was air conditioned!!! so awesome. this place was chud city...in a really good way. everyone was really nice. LOTS of cradle of filth t shirts, thick black eye make up, really big ball chain necklaces, etc. oh yeah and one kid had straight up, real vampire teeth...nutz! it was an awesome show. we had tons of fun..although, i cant say we played very well. it was still a good night. we stayed at one of the othe bands house. i cant remmeber the name of the dudes, or the band. and i feel like a dick for it cause they were great people and a great band. oh well. i woke up the next morning, somehow cuddling with john (i wasnt complaining. he is a hot dude) me, matt and eric went for a walk to check out the town. it was really cool. its like the town was in a time warp and stuck in the 1950's. or at least it looked like the 1950's as portrayed in movies. then we drove to witchita, Kansas.

i really fucked the dog on this one!!! part 1

so, the whole idea of starting this blogspot account was to document our tours day by day...the problem with doing that is, it just isnt any fun...so, i gave up on it after the Las Vegas show. this will be a re-cap of the rest of the tour...starting in Albuquerque, New Mexico

I was really siked about this show because Trapped Under Ice was the headliner. i have yet to see them up until this point, and i heard a lot of good things about their live shows. we got into albuquerque a few hours early, so we met up with grave makers friend Sammy, who's house we were designated to stay at....it was really cool to get to hang out and relax a little bit...at that point i hadnt showered or changed my clothes for about 5 days, so it was AWESOME to put on some fresh boxers, socks and clothes (no shower of course haha)

we got to the venue right on time, and the venue owner showed up shortly after...he definitely looked like a smaller version of someone who would play for suicidal tendencies. and he had a braided goatie! fuckin stoked!!! the inside of the venue was a huge suprise when we got in...it was this 4 ft tall stage with a cage barrier....this was just a straight up metal venue...aaaaaand of course the opening bands were total metal core. pretty good bands though.

our set time got cut short because, before we could even get started, matts bass rig started giving him a hard time. it wouldnt put out any sound....it took about 15 minutes to fix, so we had only about 10 minutes to play....no sweat for us! haha. we still got in about 8 songs i think. it was such a good sound system with pro moniters and everything...so cool. our set went over really well. all the kids were really nice and welcoming. got a few circle pits going...really fun set.

trapped under ice lived up to the hype...well, the singer did at least...he was jumping all over the place and going nuts....the rest of the band sort of just stood there...but still, it was a great show and they turned out to be really nice dudes

Lubbock, Texas

this was a VERY interesting night... we left albuquerque much later than we should have, so we ended up getting to Lubbock around 8:30 pm. normally, getting to a show at 8:30 isnt that big of a deal, but there were some major problems with this show. bailey kept in contact with the "promoter" and she instructed us to drive to her house...i thought this was really weird, considering how late we were. but whatever, we got to her house, she comes outside and say, "hey the venue got changed, we need to go pick up the PA speakers from the venue that the show was SUPPOSED to be at and bring them to the new venue...ok, weird, but no biggie....we got to the venue and it was such an awesome building...it was a church for punx type place....perfect size building, perfect stage, graffitti everywhere, it was awesome....unfortunately, the reason we couldnt do the show there is that there was a big storm the day before and crashed the electricity in the building. so we get the speakers and we are about to make our way to the new venue....the promoter says, "hey, the guy who is supposed to bring the PA head locked his keys in his car, so the pa is going to be late" its late, we are all getting a little aggravated, and almost ready to just call it off.....we finally got to the "venue" around 10:30 pm...turns out the show is in a 10X10 self storage unit....pretty awesome....me matt and sina were all pretty siked about it...i mean, yeah it was a lot of hassle, and yeah there were only 3 kids who came to the show, but who can say they played a show in a self storage untit??? not many bands. us a grave maker played really short sets...the guy who brought the PA wanted us to be finished by 11 pm so he could go to sleep haha . ...then we went to eat at this place called whataburger....this place DID NOT live up to the hype...totally unimpressed

san antonio, texas

this show was at a place called the White Rabbit. such a weird/cool venue. it had 2 stages...HUGE stages. they were separated by a patio area that was really big an also included a pizza place called, White Rabbit Pizza. we were told that the touring bands get free pizza...if you know me, you know how siked i was about that....the cool thing about there being 2 stages is, there was always a band playing. when one band was playing, the other band was setting up to play....really cool...its a good way to have lots of bands on a show without it being annoying. this was actually one of the more memorable shows of this tour....since the stage was so big, i had TONS of room to run around and act like an idiot...i loved it....but, again with the tall stage and barrier...thats weird to me....the kids were REALLY responsive....they showed us an awesome time....one kid even did a backflip off of the stage for a free shirt....after we played, i was dying for that pizza....turns out, they only made pepperoni pizzas, so icouldnt have any....then they said, "oh no we are making a vegetarian pizza as well" that definitely never panned out and i was extremely dissapointed. grave maker played exceptionally well that night. it was such a fun show and an amzing time...i cant wait to go back there

monterrey, Mexico

the nightmare begins! we left san antonia at 7 am to meet up with our friend Luis in laredo texas at 10 am.....we got there right on time...Luis is from monterrey mexico, and he met us in texas to make our entrance into mexico easier. we picked him up, and we decided that since we were heading into mexico, we should put all our cash into one band members bank account so that if we are stopped by the police, we have only a small amount of cash....so we collectively (abhf only, not grave maker) put 1000 dollars into our fill in drummers (sergio aka shit for brains) bank account....we headed into mexico,,,,,,as soon as we got to the border, we got hit with all kinds of fees to pay....25 bucks per person just to enter in the country, 35 bucks for a permit to drive the van into the country, and 120 bucks for taxes on all our merch...fuck.....it was a major ordeal, but we got through it....oh yeah, and luis was helping me flirt with the lady who was taking all our money....it didnt help, she didnt give us any discounts.....

we drove for about 1 1/2 hours and we got into monterrey.....literally, 5 minutes into the monterrey border, we got pulled over and robbed by the police!!! they said that i was the only person allowed to drive (bailey was driving) since the vehicle is registered under my name.... they wanted 400 bucks, luis talked them down to 120....ballz....we got to the show, and we were really hungry....there was this big group of vegan kids that had vegan tortas in a cooler....luis said "these are for you" hell yeah, so we got to eat for free right? turns out that luis bought all the tortas for us and those kids were just there selling food....they wouldnt pay to get into the show because they "only support vegan bands" arrogant fucks......i felt so bad that luis bought all that food for us from those pricks...

the show was awesome...all the bands that played were really good. and we met SO MANY awesome people.....Por La Verdad was AWESOME....Luis was the singer of that band....check them out on our top friends on myspace....

after the show......
we went back to Luis' house, and his mom made a FEAST for us!!! LITERALLY hundreds of tacos were made by her and devoured by us....she made vegan, vegetarian and meat tacos....SO AWESOME. and there was also a 3 gallon jug of horchata. i was in heaven. afterwe stuffed our faces, me, matt, sina and a bunch of our new friends took a little adventure to the local circus that just HAPPENED to be in the middle of luis' neighborhood! what the fuck? hahaha. there was this trailer...TOTALLY unprotected, (the tongue of the trailer wasnt even locked) that had 4 LIVE FUCKING TIGERS!!! these things were MASSIVE!!! this experience was really bittersweet for me because, i felt so bad for the tigers being in this trailer, in HORRIBLE conditions, and they were all drugged up...BUT i also felt very lucky to be able to come so close to such an amazing animal. we were feeling brave, so we started petting the tigers paws....could you imagine what would happen if the tigers werent drugged up, and they were just tired? one swipe from a tiger would brake the trailer open and another would destroy us...it was really awesome...around the corner from the tiger cage/trailer the was a petting zoo of sorts, that included horses, lamas, cows, camels, donkeys and zebras. soooooo cool. we said our goodbyes to our new friends and started heading towards queretaro, mexico.

30 MINUTES into our drive, i set the terminator to cruise control, and it went haywire....the transmission sped up to 90 mph, but the van was slowing down...i took cruise control off and it was not driving right....the transmission wouldnt shift right and we were traveling on the freeway at about 20 mph....we pulled over and transmission fluid was shooting out EVERYWHERE....some how it even got on the back doors! keep in mind, this is like 2 am...matt and eric walked a few miles to a gas station and bought shit tons of transmission fluid...they poured it all in, and we were able to drive it to a local transmission shop...we parked in front and we all slept until the shop opened...the dude told us that the only thing he could do is replace the transmission, but there was another shop who could probably fix the problem for a lot cheaper...so we went there, and they quoted us 400 bucks and we slipped them an extra 50 to put our van in 1st priority...we spent ALL GOD DAMN DAY in front of that auto shop...going out of our minds from the heat...at one point, a handful of us were sleeping on the black asphalt street next to the trailer. we decided to make the best of it, and we started telling funny stories about tours/relationships etc etc....sina and brian made a buffet out of the nacho and hot dog condiments at the local gas station. jon mcrae got a bad-ass haircut at the salon next to the auto shop and all the girls working there wanted a picture with him and an autograph...they finished our van 1 1/2 hours later than they quoted us....we were BARELY going to make it to the next show just in time to play...the van was running very rough and the check engine light was on....so we decided to go to a gas station, and figure out whether we should move on with the tour, or go back to the states to fix the van....on the way to the gas station, we got pulled over by the police...they were looking for drugs and weapons...when they found we didnt have any, they sent us on our way...we decided that we for sure had to cancel the queretaro show...we took our van back to the shop where they "fixed" it, and told them what was up....they said they couldnt do anything about it until monday...so, we decided it would be best if we drove back to the states to get the van fixed...that night, our friends in ill intent and horizons (awesome bands, check them out) were playing in monterrey, so we went to that show to hang out with them. luis got in contact with the promoter for the mexico city show, and he offered to help pay for gravemakers bus tickets if they continued the mexico tour while we got the van fixed...so, we graciously parted ways and drove back to the states that night. it was a 4 hour drive back to the US border....this was the longest 4 hour drive of my life! i was waiting for the van to explode any second....we made it to the border, and AS SOON as the broder agent asked us our citiizen ship, BOOM there goes the transmission! we were able to pull over into one of the parking spots, and the dickhead border agent STILL made us unload the whole trailer to inspect everything! asshole! matt and eric walked to a gas station again, bought shit tons of transmission fluid, found out where a transmission shop was, came back and basically poured fluid in, drove until it ran out, poured fluid in, drove until it ran out and so on and so on...until we made it to the transmission shop. it was about 6 am at this point...we were parked in a jack in the box parking lot until the shop opened. our buddies in ill intent and horizons found out where we were and they stopped by to wish us good luck.....such awesome guys. they hung out with us for a bit, lifted our spirits and they moved on to their next shows. after the shop opened and they took our van, we hung out at jack in the box, and i emailed the band, The Red Alert. a band from laredo texas that we were playing with a few days after this. Q, the bassist of the band, called me and came to hang out for a while. he also got a hold of their guitarist, alex...it was so cool that these dudes came to hang out and give us some moral support...from total strangers to great friends within a matter of minutes...alex drove us around, showed us the mall, and an all you can eat pizza buffet...when Q got off work, and alex went to work, Q picked us up and took us to his house so we could take showers.

after we showered, Q took us to a place that i like to call HEAVEN. its really called, Taco Palenque. this place RULES. you buy a huge bowl of beans and cheese for 2.75 and they give you all the free tortillas and chips you want for free...and the salsa bar was AMAZING. it had lettuce, hot carrots, onions, peppers, all kinds of different salsas and dressings, cliantro....it was huge. in a sense, its all you can eat for 2.75

SOUTHEAST ASIA TOUR

December 12- Manila, Philippines- Ten O2 Bar
December 13- Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia- Little Havana Club (Bridging Oceans Fest)
December 14- Singapore City, Singapore- F.A.D. Studios
December 15- Pasir Gudang, Malaysia- Rockless Steak House
December 16- Mallaca, Malaysia- Naif Studio
December 17- Manjung, Malaysia- Gemerencang Studio
December 19- Taiping, Malaysia- Rain House
December 20- Bangkok, Thailand- Immortal Bar
December 21- Bangkok, Thailand- White Out
December 24- Bandung, Indonesia- Uninus
December 25- Parung, Indonesia- Stupa Studio
December 26- Bekasi, Indonesia- Aladin Cafe
December 27- Jakarta, Indonesia- Stardust Cafe (Hardfest)
December 28- Tangerang, Indonesia- Bumi Serpong Damai
December 31- Kota Kinabalu, Borneo, Malaysia- Q-Ball (Borneo Fest)
January 2- San Pablo City, Philippines- Lion's Club (Lakefest)
January 3- Bauan, Philippines- Rooftop of Caraan Building

Hardcore Punk in Vietnam....

"Hi Rupert !

i think "A Better Hope Foundation band " can't play successfully, cause In Viet Nam we dont really like Punk much, and this band seem not famous enough for people to know who are they, and to come to see them. And Vietnamese ROCK pleople they 're much into Heavy Metal and Nu-Metal , somethig like Linkin Park Or Metallica.

I just give you my idea,...hope you can decide for the Show"

Las Vegas, NV

about half way to the venue, bailey got a text message saying the the show was cancelled! so we all strted freaking out trying to figure out why the show got cancelled with such short notice and if there was another place we could have the show....the promoter said that the owner of the coffee shop decided to hold a wedding reception there instead of having our show there....its crazy how people that dont understand hardcore and the concept of touring bands can so easily just bail on 5 touring bands....bailey made quite a few calls and sent tons of messages trying to figure shit out. it took a few hours, but he got it worked out to where we could still have the show at the same venue...but we couldnt start the show until 10 pm, after the wedding reception and each band could only play one song...and it had to be a free show, so we wouldnt make any money....but whatever, we needed a show! so we agreed. we met up with the dudes of ill intent at the new york new york hotel and got some good hang out-age going on....we went to the food court to eat some food...i already ate my bread and peanut butter for the day, so i just wanted to get some water.....get this, del taco wanted to charge me 54 cents for a water cup.....literally every place i have ever been to ever will give you a free cup of water....but i guess not las vegas.....so, out of principle, i went to the soda fountain, and weezed the juice straight from the tap (thats a pauley shore reference for those of you who appreciate bad humor) i think i ended up getting more sprite on my face than actually getting water in my mouth, but whatever, i got the point across....we were supposed to meet up with another canadian band, Horizons, but their van broke down, so ill intent went to pick them up as we made our way to the venue.....we hung out for a while and went to food for less while the reception was still ending....everyone at the coffee shop was in a good mood after the party, so they decided to let us each play 4-5 songs each....it was such a good turn out....tons of kids, and a realy cool set up...horizons opened....that band blew me away....the nicest dudes ever and they put on an amazing show......ill intent killed it... they are a really great live band, even though my boy terrance doesnt sing for them anymore, i still loved their set....our set went over really well....it was really intimate and close up....such a cool vibe....we sold TONS of merch after we played....stoked.....2 songs into grave makers set, kids were going nuts, and a fight broke out, so the show got shut down.....figures.....i dont think i will ever understand why kids fight at shows....fuckin idiots....grave maker just brought the house down haha.....definitely my favorite show of this tour so far....after we packed up, we made our way back to the strip to hang out...we gave these weird drunk girls a ride in our van....that was definitely interesting....lets just say, i wouldnt mind if either of them had gotten strangled by any person in our 2 bands...i will leave it at that....we walked around the strip for a little bit, and decided to go to mcdonalds....on our way through a hotel to get there, i definitely got hit on by a lady that turned out to be a hooker...i was flattered at first....we rolled into mcdonalds about 20 deep....made lots of noise, harrassed lots of civilians, creeped out lots of foreign girls and after prying bailey and brian away from their new french girlfrineds, we made our way back to the van, said our goodbyes to ill intent and horizons and left for albuquerque, new mexico

fresno, CA

i woke up at 930 am, expecting to get tattooed by drummer of pressure point at 11 am. when i woke up, by back was absolutely thrashed...i went into the house that we were staying at to round everyone up...jon and eric had to go to the doctors, and a bunhc of the other dudes were rounding up a bunch of people to have a baseball game. i really wanted to play baseball, but how could i turn down a free tattoo on tour? brian, wayne, sina, carlos and i made it to the tattoo shop at 12 and the place was still closed. so we went and picked up some food and came back. the artist tattooing brian finally got to the shop about 20 minutes after we got back there. the artist who was tattooing wayne and i was running way behind because when he was on his way out to leave his house, he found out that his car had been broken into and had everything stolen out of it....bum out!i quickly figured out that there would be no time for me to get a tattoo. we had at least a 4 hour drive to the next show and we didnt want to get there any later than 8 pm. so wayne and brian got tattooed, and i went downstairs and slept. we met back up with the dudes at the house and said our goodbyes...before we got in the van, brian and i both had to use the restroom, and we figured, why not just pee on the chain link fence in the front yard? so we did, and (i really wish i would have gotten a picture of this) jake, the dog of the house didnt like what we were doing, so he started peeing on brian from the other side of the fence! so funny! but he was an adorable dog, and we were peeing on his territory, so it was all good. we made to it to fresno at around 830 pm. as we pulled into the neighborhood that the house show was in, i was growing skeptical of how good the show was going to be....there were no street lights, and a few of the streets looked like a scene out of the movie, Road Warrior. we found the house, and there were tons of cars outside....awesome turn out!this house was punk as fuck....the bands were playing in the back yard, it was a really cool set up...there was definitely a few sheds in the backyard that resembled torture chambers from the movie hostel, or texas chainsaw massacre...awesome...the opening bands were cool, and all the kids were REALLY nice. it was so fun...when we played, i tried getting someone to jump off the roof for a free shirt, but i guess the parents heard me say that over the mic and they came out and made a big fuss over it, so the kid who was going to do it bailed on the free shirt...oh well, at least no one got hurt...our set went over really well. the kids were very welcoming and showed us a really good time...grave maker was up next, and jon couldnt sing because he was being a big pussy punk mother fucker....haha, just kidding jon! earlier when he went to the doctors, he had a small procedure done on his armpit. he had to have part of it cut open....no fun at all....so he was in A LOT of pain and fucked up on medication...so carlos and a few other randmos from the show took care of all the gravemaker vocals...it was a lot of fun...thats one of the things i love about punk and hardcore...anything goes! after the show we all met up at in n out to eat and hang out. then made our way to the house we were staying at....this was definitely and abandoned flophouse...there was running water and electricity, but other waise an empty house with only 2 beds and tons of trash and debros everywhere....oh yeah, and in the kitchen sink there was a plate of old moldy food that we were trying to decided if it was donut holes or meatballs with candy sprinkles on them...the place had a lot of charachter to say the least.jon, sergio and i slept in the van with the doors open. it was such a nice night out. matt was saying something about sleeping on the roof of the house, but i never asked him how that panned out for him.....next stop, LAS VEGAS

Sacramento fucking rules

we got to the house that the show was at in sacramento at 4 pm. the show was supposed to start at 5. as soon as we pulled up and saw the spot that the show was going to be at, i knew it was going to be a good time. it was in a big garage in the back of this house. oh, and they had these bunnies...

we got all loaded in, and the dude who put on the show brought out all kinds of food and soda for us...so stoked...

everyone we met was super nice to us right off the bat. we felt right at home in this environment. one of the coolest things about this show is, there was a very diverse crowd. hardcore kids, punks, skinheads, tons of mutants...so awesome. i really think thats what makes shows great, is when no one cares who is who and what they are...everyone just came out to have a good time. 

one of the coolest parts about the show was, our good friend, and my old roomate, jim rice, and his girl friend, amy came out to the show....so, awesome getting to see friends on the road...and if that wasnt cool enough, jim brought us carrot fucking cupcakes....if you know me at all, you know how siked i get about free treats....i love you jim!

Grave Maker showed up soon after us. it was really cool seeing those dudes. the show started around 6.. the first 3 bands were, in desperation, knuckle puck and plead the fifth...all really good bands...we played 4th...had a really good show. i always have such a good time playing. even if no one moves for us or sings along, i just love playing. i think it went over really well with all the kids who came out..

after us was poverty bay saints...this was my third time seeing these guys within one week, and it was my favorite time out of the 3. this band is so fucking good, and i cant wait to play more shows with them.

it had been a while since i saw grave maker play a show..i almost forgot how awesome these guys are live...im so lucky that i get to see them play every day for the next 3 weeks....our good friend carlos from costa rica is grave makers roadie on this tour...its going to be such a good time...the crowd lost their minds for grave maker. they play such an intense show, and the kids eat it up.

pressure point played last...i was really stoked to play with these guys...they have been around for 15 years, and i have so much respect for them...this was a relatively small show for them, and they still had a great time...they played so good...did 4 really awesome cover songs, and tons of sing alongs. such a good band...i cant believe we got to play with them....

after the show, i got hooked up with a poverty bay saints shirt, and pressure point shirt...one of my favorite parts of being in a band, haha...as sina would say, im a huge "fan boy" so i love that shit...

poverty bay saints left for seattle, and us, gravemaker and pressure point made our way to a coffee shop called True Love....little did i know, this placed was owned by Kevin Seconds! so awesome....and if that wasnt cool enough, when we walked upstairs to order coffee, he was working there!!! i couldnt believe it....7 seconds is one of my biggest inspirations, so you can imagine how excited i was to be in the same room with this dude....he was so cool, and nice to talk to...very gracious about me being a fan boy, and he took a few pictures with us...then after that, we went downstairs to hang out...a couple of dudes from killing the dream came to hang out...this was definitely a night to remember, and a perfect way to kick off the ABHF/Grave Maker tour....

Reno to Sacramento Playlist...

Infest- No Man's Slave

The Hellacopters- Head Off

Kyoko- The Layover EP

The Mercury Program- All the Suits Began to Fall Off

The Dillinger Escape Plan- Under the Running Board

Blacklisted- Peace on Earth, War on Stage

Another Victim- A Portrayal of Vengeance

Reno, NV

after driving straight through the whole night and dropping our friend nate off in sacramento, we jumped on the 80 east and headed to reno. we made a little pit stop at the truckee river for a nature walk.

fuckin awesome

after we got our fill of sight seeing, we headed over to my parents house in sparks. we got greeted by my dad and the 2 most adorable attack dogs ever, my chihuahuas Ruby and Saffron. we found out that Death Before Dishonor was playing a show in reno on thursday  night...so, we decided to go to that show to pass out flyers for our show on friday. my dad made us some amazing pasta for dinner, then we headed into town to print flyers and go visit my mom at her work.  my dad had to work early the next morning, so we dropped him off at the house before we went to the show. 

we got to the show and there were TONS of kids there...it wasnt suprising, Death Before Dishonor has a huge draw where ever they go. CDC was on the bill too. there was a couple hours before the show was over, so we walked around downtown reno to check out the city.  while we were out, i seperated from the crew for a little while to meet up with janet reno. we walked back to the show to meet back up with the band and hung out for a while...at the venue, there was a mobile diner truck. he was selling burritos, corn dogs, fries, all kinds of junk....so awesome. the show ended and we passed out tons of flyers. as we were running out of flyers, there was a dude standing outside of the door, waiting for someone to come out. apparently there was "pit beef" during the show, and it needed to be settled....now, keep in mind, we are from southern CA. fights at shows where we are from are BEYOND  rare. so, i didnt think much of it...i figured they would just argue a little, and it would be done.  that definitely was not the case...the dude came out of the venue, and the guy who was waiting for him just started throwing blows. then as soon as that started, some other guy ran up, and fucking sprayed BEAR MACE in the dudes face! WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?! who does that??? it pretty much spread throughout the entire block and made everyone cough up their lungs...

after the bear mace bomb, we headed back to my parents house to hang out. and bring our night to an end. JR and i went to this really cool place where you walk up this trail and once you get to the top, you can see all of reno and sparks...so awesome. i dropped her off, then i headed back to the house and i slept in the van. before we left for tour, matt and i installed a new bench seat in our van that folds out into a bed, so sleeping in the van is ideal. 

friday morning, we got up around 930 am. matt, sergio and i went out to run some errands and buy some maple syrup for the pancakes that my mom made for us. once we got back, my mom had pancakes, eggs, tons of fruit and bacon for the meat eaters in the group. SO MUCH food! i ate so much that i puked...LITERALLY. for the rest of the day, most of us just lounged around and watched tv and surfed the internet.

 my dad made us some delicious bean burritos before we left for the venue. we got to the show around 7 for load-in. Brandon, the dude who put on the show got there around 715 and told us the show probably wouldnt start until around 9. so, we walked around downtown, and again i split from the boys to meet up with my friend. as i was walking, i got a call from brandon, saying that the opening band bailed! so lame. they were upset that there was such a low attendance, so they didnt feel like playing...what a bunch of weenies. then brandon told me that the whole show might be cancelled dude to low attendance. i was soooo bummed out because our show the night before was cancelled. i told brandon that we REALLY wanted to play, but we didnt want him to lose any money on the show, so we asked if we could move the show to someones house....by the time i got back to the venue, matt was backing the trailer up to load our equipment. turns out that brandon convinced the venue owner to let us have the show for free....STOKED! we just wanted to play....we dont care about low attendance...we set up our gear and merch and played the show. its really too bad that it was such a small show because the venue was AWESOME. the sound was so great, and the place had a really good design for a hardcore show...despite all the problems, we had a great time playing. brandons band, 1618 played after us. they had a really tight set, and they are all such good dudes. it turned out to be a really fun night, and im so stoked that they pulled through for us with a show. they even managed to pull together enough gas money for us to get to the next show with any money out of our own pockets. we hung out for a little bit, then headed back to my parents house, then i drove my friend home.

when i got back, the dudes were watching the movie, Scrooged and Sina and Sergio were making mashed potatoes. i checked my email, hung out for a little, then headed back out to the van to sleep.  Reno was a total success.

things that ruled about reno:

nature walks

crucial hang outs with mom, dad, the puppies and friends

lots of free food

things that sucked about reno:

the bear mace incident

no one baked me any home made cookies

having to leave reno - this place rules and im coming back as soon as tour is over

we are leaving in a little while to go meet up with our boys Grave Maker in sacramento. im so siked about the show tonight. so many good bands...this will be my first time getting to see Pressure Point. that band rules so hard. and we get to play with poverty bay saints again. tonight should be a good time. there is a chance i might get tattooed in sac. we'll see how it pans out. good bye reno...see you soon 

first day of our fall tour - riverside CA

day 1 - pharoahs den

Ceremony, Poverty Bay Saints

we got to the venue right on time at 630 pm. the dude who owns the venue was no where to be found. we were a little worried that maybe he forgot about it or something. i started freaking out that we might not have had a show, but, it all worked out. the first 2 bands were pretty cool. cut the line opened, then broken patterns. it was a really good turn out by the time we played. somewhere around 100+ kids were in the room. we were having a free skatedeck giveaway for whoever went the craziest for our set. well, we still have the skatedeck. no one really moved haha. we played a great set. we were totally on and we all felt really good and had lots of energy. it was really nice to play a show again. this was our first show since we got back from central america.  so, it felt really good. Poverty bay saints played after us. they did really good. i really like their sound a lot. make sure and check them out if you havent yet. Ceremony played last. ive seen ceremony a few times. they always put on a great show...tonight was especially awesome...the crowd went bonkers. there was at least 200kids in the room.  all completely losing their minds. it was so awesome. such a great band. im really glad we got to play the first show of our tour with them. tomorrow we were supposed to play in the modesto area in CA, but our show got cancelled last minute. bummer! so now we are headed up to reno. we are playing reno on friday, and my parents live out there. so it will be cool to hang out, go to the farmers market. flyer the show. should be a good time.

things that ruled about today:

finally left for tour

finally played a show again

got paid at the show

and we saw this dudes awesome tattoo:

fuckin rules! anyways, our friend nate from sos booking/pharoahs den hitched a ride with us. we'll make a pit stop in sacramento to drop him off, then we hit reno. i cant wait to meet up with our boys Grave Maker. shit's gonna rule!

Central American Tour 2008

June 19
After rounding everyone up and eating at Matt's mom's house in Fullerton, we were off to our 140 am flight from LAX to Guatemala City.

The line was fucking miserable, and after standing in line for like half an hour they told us our merch bags were too heavy and they were going to charge us an extra $150 to bring them on the plane and on top of that they weren't even guaranteed to get to Guatemala for 2-9 days. So we all scrambled to take as much merch out of the duffel bags and cram shirts into our carry on luggage...after much stress and scrambling we made the weight work being like 3 pounds under the limit and got the merch bags onto the plane with no extra charge. STOKED. After that fiasco Wes and I somehow got Business Class tickets...awesome. I slept for most of the plane ride, if you can call sleeping on airplanes real sleep. We landed at like 7 am and had to go through customs after we got all of our luggage. Luckily the customs agent got annoyed with none of us being able to speak Spanish (even though Kurt does) and let us in without taxing us for anything. After customs we were finally able to go out and saw 2 kids, one wearing a Grave Maker shirt and one wearing a Geeks shirt. It was awesome being able to spot our ride so easily. Diego and Byron proceeded to take us to the city so we could change over our money to Quetzales.





After hanging in the city for a little, we made our way to Diego's (our host) house. He lived about 30 minutes out of the city so it was much more rural. On the way we saw this:










After a bumpy ride, we arrived to Diego's house to be greeted by his mom and sister. we ordered pizza and chicken I think. Diego told us his family had rented us a house across the street so there would be enough room for everybody. The house had no running water or electricity...pretty weird. We all slept on inflatable beds and mine and Kurt's deflated 10 seconds after we layed down on it every night...fuck that ground was uncomfortable.





Oh yeah...here's a picture of how a bathroom with no running water works. The trash can is filled with water that you fill the bucket with and pour in the toilet to flush



June 20
The next morning some of the dudes went on a run with the Guatemalans, and after that we all met up for them to take us on a guerrilla mission into the jungle. Whenever people go into jungles, it's usually on a tourist guided venture, with paths and everything. Not the case with ours. The jungle was so fucking sketchy with us having to go under barbed wire fences, crossing rivers, and trying to find a path let alone solid ground to walk on. I didn't even know if the Guatemalans knew what they were doing. Oh yeah, there were a shitload of random cows on the way there and some sitting in the middle of the jungle. The 4 hour hike got sketchier the farther we went, there was actually a path when we started that quickly disappeared



















When we got back it started pouring rain so we all got soaked. I think most of us took cold ass showers and went to the mall and a Chinese restaurant after this. I'm a food fanboy/connoisseur so I took a lot of food pictures.

Awesome store in the mall:


Chinese food in Guatemala:








June 21
We woke up and went to Antigua to relax for a day before our first show...




Guatemalan Thai food? I wish we ate here












The restaurant we ate at was criminally delicious. I wish I took a picture of the name so I could remember it. Food pictures will have to do I guess






After Antigua it was finally time for our first show. I had no idea what to expect as I'm sure none of us did either


The show started super early and there weren't that many people there...but by the time we went on there were around 60-70 people there. The venue was basically a dilapidated abandoned house. People weren't as into it as I hoped, but we sold a good amount of merch. Oh yeah, and we covered Seein Red by Minor Threat and kids lost their minds. I guess the 80s core is strong in Guatemala. Here's some pictures of the venue:







Our ridiculous amount of merch

The crew after the show


After the show, at least half the people in the above picture including us went to eat at this Italian restaurant called Vesuvius. They had 3 foot long pizzas! so fucking good.

Apparently everyone in Guatemala walks around with a machine gun/rifle so I made it a goal to get a picture with one. Mission accomplished:

3 foot pizzas


We made our way back to Diego's after saying bye to all the new friends we'd made. Playing Guatemala again will rule. The hospitality of Diego's family was through the roof, his mom even made me pancakes when we got back because I have 4 stomachs. His little sister made us this:


June 22
After a quick breakfast, we made our way to the bus station and met up with Aldemaro from El Salvador. He had come up to Guatemala the night before to see our show there, and rode with us on the bus to El Salvador. The dudes at the border had huge guns and I got some pupusas for a dollar, a native food of El Salvador. They're kind of like a salty stuffed pancake with beans and squash and meat. (no meat for me). You put pickled cabbage on top for flavor. Delicious.




After arriving to El Salvador and dropping off all of our shit at Aldemaro's everyone was hungry so we went to get more pupusas since me and Kurt were the only ones who got them on the bus ride.



Check out the pickled cabbage and Aldemaro's sweet nintendo tattoo. Dude is obsessed!

After we ate it started pouring rain so we all got drenched before we could find a bus to take us back to Aldemaro's. After making our way back we got ready for our first show in El Salvador and went to the venue.

The venue was upstairs but it had open sides so it didn't get super hot. I think we ended up playing second to last and the reaction was awesome. The only bummer about this show was that most of the bands were metalcore. But the hardcore kids dug us so much, they asked us to play a show with all hardcore bands at the same venue 2 days later! We gratefully obliged. After the show, we all went to a restaurant that was pretty hot inside. We wanted to sit outside but the locals told us it's too dangerous to sit outside at night...weird. After sitting there for awhile no one ate so we made our way back in 2 taxis. On the ride back our taxi driver told us we were driving through an MS 13 neighborhood and that if anyone walks around there at night they would for sure be killed. Oh and he also mentioned that they sometimes stop taxi drivers at night, kill them, and take all their money. Not awkward at all.

June 23
We woke up and went to the mall where they had KFC, Pizza Hut, and a bunch of random stores.
KFC Delivery bikes?

Pizza Hut is a sit down restaurant in Central America

No smoking, No Dogs, No Guns...?!?


After lunch we met up with some more locals to make our way to the beach. It was about an hour from where we were staying, so it was awesome that they were willing to take us.
Wild horse on the way to the beach









After we got back from the beach we were all hungry again so we went to another Chinese restaurant. Kurt and I wanted to eat Chinese food in every country...awesome.

This plate of chow mein was 3 dollars!


June 24
Kurt, Rory, Matt, and Aldemaro went to the city while me and Tyson hung out at Aldemaro's house. Wes got tattooed on Aldemaro's front porch for a payment of 5 shirts to Dennis, the best dude ever.

Finished

Awesome banner in the city


This was the night of our second show in El Salvador

I was a bit skeptical about how this show would go...it was booked 2 days before the day of the show. I was even more skeptical when it started 4 and a half hours late at 930. We ended up going on at around midnight and everyone stayed and came in. We played probably our craziest set ever, crowd wise. Kids were losing it the whole night and when our last song started they did a wall of death and we didn't even ask or motion for it, it was insane. We sold a ridiculous amount of merch. El Salvador has a great hardcore scene.
Wall of Death

Dude jumping over Wes

Us with the locals after the show






After taking a shit ton of pictures with all the locals, we went back to Aldemaro's house for dinner, made by his mom.
Aldemaro's mom's chow mein..with hot sauce


June 25
By the time we finished eating it was about 130 am and we had to be at the bus station to go to Honduras by 5 am. I tried to stay up but I fell asleep at like 4. For some reason, we had a super nice bus with crazy comfortable seats. I love you King Quality Bus Line. Oh yeah, this bus ride is where we started taking pictures of each other asleep making ridiculous faces.
Case in point:


We got picked up by Christian and Roxanne, who took us to the mall to eat. Wes and I ate at Subway, Kurt ate Chinese food, A few dudes ate Wendy's...anyways, after we ate we made our way to our host Johnny and Steph's house
Across the street from their house




We were the first hardcore or punk band to ever play in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, and hardcore does not exist there. We played in a bowling alley with a screamo band and a metalcore band. I had no idea how the kids would react when we played. The kids went off when we played, basically just running around and going crazy the whole time. We covered Minor Threat and not one person in the room had heard of them, it was so surreal. We sold at least one shirt for every person who was there, and there were around 40-50 kids there. The treatment we got after our set was unreal. We were taking pictures and signing autographs for like half an hour after we were done. Insane! Did I mention we played in a bowling alley?


After the show some of the locals took us to get a local Honduran delicacy, Baleadas. Baleadas consist of a huge fluffy tortilla with mashed beans spread on it. I got mine with just beans, avocado, and salsa, but you can also get meat, sour cream, and cheese. SO good.




O rly??????????


June 26
We woke up and Roxanne and Christian were nice enough to take us to...somewhere that I don't remember the name of. But it was totally sweet, as you will see with the ensuing pictures.

Beautiful



National Geographic?











We left this beautiful location because Rory, our roadie jumped out of a tree into the above pictured river and landed on a rock, cutting his back and bruising his rib. Crazy. When we arrived at the hospital, Kurt was asleep and a bug flew in his mouth and hung out.

Crazy Honduran traffic


After we left the hospital we got food from Pizza Hut, and went to the local college because our ride, Christian, had class for an hour. We met a girl that wanted to go to the show the night before but she couldn't make it. She was stoked to hang out with us for a little, and we went to the mall with her so Kurt and Tyson could get their hair cut


After the mall we went back to Steph and Johnny's house. Their mom had made us a plate of beans, rice, plantanes, and some of the best avocado I've had in my life. Fucking delicious! Seriously, how good does that avocado look?


June 27
We woke up and headed over to the bus station to go to Tegucigalpa, Honduras. 5 syllables.
The hills of Tegucigalpa


We were greeted by Juan and his friends. Juan is such a sweet dude, he lived in LA for 6 months to go to Musician's Institute and his dad was a pro soccer player. His family was loaded and he had a studio in his house! His band Ant1v1ru5 played our show with us and they ruled. Awesome musicians.
Juan's studio in his house

I wish we were in Tegucigalpa for longer than a day so we could have recorded here. We went to the mall and I ate 2 foot longs from Subway. After the mall we headed over to the venue for our show in Tegucigalpa

The 2 other bands on this show were a mix between screamo and nu metal. Hardcore doesn't exist in Tegucigalpa either, but the kids were still awesome. The first 2 bands were both really awesome musicians. The equipment that we played on was really nice too. The kids went crazy when we played, and didn't know Minor Threat here either. After our set was done, the kids were screaming for an encore and we had already played all the songs that we know...so we played one of our songs twice and kids were super stoked on it. So awesome! Honduras has the nicest people ever. Oh yeah, and before we played, Kurt got tattooed because he didn't have a chance to in El Salvador. When he was getting tattooed, we heard a DJ talking about our show that night on the radio in the shop. We called in and the artist told the DJ he was tattooing the guitarist...Weird.






After the show we stayed at Juan's girlfriend's house, Virginia. She was pretty sassy, but cool. Her parents were also loaded so we enjoyed the first hot showers of tour. We got about 4 hours of sleep before having to wake up and go to the bus station to go to Nicaragua.

June 28
We woke up early and were at the bus station by 6 am. After saying bye to our new friends in Tegucigalpa, we got on the bus. The roads were dirt practically the whole way there. Nicaragua was the poorest country we played in, and it was insanely hot during the day.

This was seriously in the middle of nowhere. Coke is taking over the world.




We finally made it to Nicaragua and Jorge met up with us at the bus station. We didn't meet one person who spoke English the whole time we were in Nicaragua. Jorge took us to Violeta's house, where we stayed 2 out of 3 nights in Nicaragua. It was conveniently located almost across the street from the venue we played at. After dropping off all of our stuff, we went to eat. This place looked pretty hole in the wall, but it was delicious.
Beans and rice, with FUCKING DEEP FRIED MASHED POTATOES. I lost my mind at how good this was.


After we ate, we made our way to the venue to play.

This show was interesting. I didn't really pay attention to the first 2 bands, but I remember one of them covering Norma Jean haha. Option played after us, Violeta's band. I think they are the only hardcore band in the whole country. Kids were super stoked on them. Awesome dudes/dudette. We played last and it was fucking packed, kids went off. It must have been 130 degrees in that tiny fucking room by the end of our set. We are all completely soaked by the time we finished playing.
So fucking hot...










June 29
We were rudely awaken by the blistering Nicaraguan heat. Violeta and her family had a pretty nice house, so it was comfortable. Her family are Christian missionaries, so they give drugs for free to the sick and poor I think, so they had stacks of pills in bags in their living room. It was so fucking hot a cold shower sounded good for once. We planned to go to Granada for the day to go to a marketplace, and then to go to a huge lake with over 300 islands in it. Awesome.


These were real.

In the middle of the road...

We finally all made it to the lake

The lake was amazing....PROOF:




Some of the islands were inhabited by people who built their own houses on them. Awesome.

And they fish for food










After our lake expedition we went to Papa John's...I had no idea they had those in Nicaragua. It was pretty on point. We stayed at Luis's house, and we slept in an internet cafe that he has in the front of his house.


June 30
We were planning to go into town today, but Rory wasn't feeling well. He had already gone to the hospital in Honduras so he was already in pretty bad shape. Kurt and Wes accompanied him to the hospital while Tyson, Matt, and I hung out at Luis's house. This day went by so insanely slow, we had literally nothing to do all day. I took some random pictures at Luis's house.

Outhouse in the backyard!


After waited around all day, Kurt and Wes came back to Luis's house in the late afternoon without Rory. It turns out he got bitten by a mosquito and got the Dengue Virus. Google it. It was so bad that the doctors told him he shouldn't continue on to Costa Rica with us. The doctor told him to stay in Nicaragua for 5 days then fly back home. Matt had to call the airlines and arrange a flight back for him, and it was the most frustrating experience for him, it kept disconnecting at crucial parts in the call, and after about 2 hours, a long and expensive cell phone call, and a long time at a phone cafe, everything for his flights were in order. Everyone was kind of tense at this point because of such a crazy thing happening. Our roadie got bitten by a fucking mosquito and got a virus so bad that he had to fly home early because of it. Un fucking real.

After all this tension, we all felt we had to unwind...what better way to do that than go clubbing in Nicaragua..err probably a lot.

Check out Kurt in the background




July 1
This was probably the most miserable day of tour. 11 and a half hour bus ride from Nicaragua to Costa Rica, 3 and a half hours in line for customs...FUCK

This little kid at a bus stop made these out of palm tree leaves super quick in front of us. I gave him a dollar for the flower.



The 3 and a half hour customs line


We finally made it to be the bus station in Costa Rica to be greeted by Alejandro. After going to the grocery store to buy food, we went back to his house and all passed out.

July 2
All we did was go to the mall.

Burger King fried chicken?


At the mall this dude who owned a computer store was watching porn with no shame, this shit faced outward so everyone could see!


July 3
To promote for our show, Alejandro, our host and promoter had set up a TV interview for us...Crazy!!! This was so so weird none of could stop laughing at how ridiculous the whole situation was...a bunch of smelly punks from California being interviewed on Costa Rican TV!










I wish we had a copy of this on video or I could least see it somewhere on the internet, this shit was too funny.

July 4
We went to the mall again today with Carlos because Alejandro had to work. Carlos is so whitewashed it's hilarious, great dude.

DISGUSTING ass Wendy's in Costa Rica

We have pigeons, Costa Rica has Parrots

???????????????

Stripper cow




July 5
It was finally the day of our first show after sitting around in Costa Rica watching Beerfest too many times.


The was kind of a bummer, it started at 2 pm and there were like 8 bands and they all lagged and we were the ones who ended up getting our set cut short. Also, fuck douchey security that stands on stage when we play. Other than that, the kids were great and the show was pretty cool.

We made it back home to be greeted by this creepy thing that was in our room


July 6
Our second show in Costa Rica. This was in Palmares, about an hour and a half away from San Jose where we were staying and where our first show was.

The Costa Ricans had rented us a bus full of people who would go to the show with us


The show was once again bitter sweet. We had a pretty good reaction and sold a lot of merch, but there was a fight when we played which once again cut our set short. We had to hurry because there was a ska show after ours. We made our way back to Alejandro's and went to sleep.

July 7
Our last day in Costa Rica, we just relaxed, went to the bank to change money, and went to the grocery store to buy a little more food. I spent like 40 bucks the whole time we were in Costa Rica because I just loved off of pasta with soy meat and avocados in it. So good!


Soy meat aisle in Costa Rica


July 8
Alejandro drove us to the airport as we said our last goodbyes. We waited a couple hours for our flight to North Carolina. It took about 4 hours, and once we landed it was the start of a miserable night trying to get comfortable sleeping on the airport floor. Once we got on the plane we all passed out...landing in LA was a good feeling...finally being home after this crazy experience felt nice. Central America, see you next year.