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.