Sailors Immortalized

Here are some pictures taken by Mr. Pj of our trip to Lerin's Grandad's:

Sailors

Sailing sailing sailing away from the Olympic Peninsula... we all (pj tyler lerin ashley) took the ferry over to Lerin's grandad's place out on the water along the Olympic Peninsula- so rad. It was one of the beautiful and alluring little cove cabin home i've ever been to. It was complete with ham radios, and unwanted bee hive and little dingy boats. We spent the day on the beach (gandad's dock) hanging around. Tyler and I took one of the dingy boats out and clumsily paddled around- just like real sailors! Pj took some great pictures which i'll put up once he stops playing his stupid video games and decides to upload them- for now I just grabbed some from Tyler's camera.

We left that evening and caught the 920 ferry back to Seattle just in time to head over to our good friend Rhett's birthday party. His party was bumpin' to say the least. After the party Lerin and Ashley were overcome by the inexplicable urge to jump into a large pool of water- I won't begin to estimate why...but tyler and pj were bewitched into enlistment so, in the name of sociability, I went along and swam in Lake Union for a few short minutes. This adventure stamped the conclusion to the long day.

Today, Sunday, I have done and plan on doing very little. Make food, read, and keep to myself. Summer is a beautiful thing. eighteen days until ms. haan comes within arms length.

Critical Blog

The last friday of the month! I can smell it from miles away...for those of you who don't know, this means critical mass. Critical mass is where anyone and everyone with a bicycle comes together and rides around town. Alex Mccully, Lindsey Beach, Shantel, PJ, Ashley, Cory and Sean Hamilton all came along! There was a giant summer group! Upwards to 200+ bike friends came out, whew.

Let's see, before massing I spent the day reading, recording, and eating sandwiches with Pj. I worked on my bike for a while and talked to Cynthia for a bit while she as driving down the coast to visit her sisters. I guess my day didn't totally start until critical mass got rolling-
Most of mass I was riding with Sean, which was nice to catch up with him. Sean is a good guy- we miss Patrick. After mass Sean, Lindsey and I went over to Our House and sat on the porch chatting for nice long while. I really do miss being around that group of homies- they really are wonderful. Sean and I headed back towards our respective homes, which mine was empty do to everyone going to see Wall-E. With the house to myself I started a fire in the pit out back and enjoyed a quite crackling fire for the remainder of the evening.

Today Tyler, Ashley, Lerin Pj and I are heading over to Lerin's grandad's home on the coast. Should be a good time.

Tommy's Tabloids

This is now Tommy's Tabloids. Anyhow, the last two days have been nonstop action. I don't much remember what all went on yesterday, all that I can really recall is making pizza bagels with pj, visiting melanie, marissa and alex, and seeing symmetry/symmetry. It was a nice, lazy day- that is for sure.
Today was particularly nice for many reasons.

I woke up nice and late, just in time for Abby, Jake and Shantel (and of course Challah) (Our House) to come by for some Bisquick pancakes! We made pancakes, and visited all morning...it was great great great! I spent the afternoon tracking down a bike pump, visiting Sean Hamilton and getting the key ingredients for oatmeal cookies (which are for the new neighbors). PJ and I ran into our good friend Spencer (from 6th hill) who is working at the Tully's up on Queen Anne. I like Spencer, he is a good good guy.

I played music for a long while and then watched The Cell. I am now watching some Seinfeld. Word on the street is that the crew is heading over to Lerin's grandad's place on the coast on saturday- i've heard countless stories about this place, so it should be a good time.

Tomorrow I plan on playing some music and reading- I'm reading Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, it's pretty good so far. Cynthia just purchased her ticket to come out to Moorpark! She'll be in town the weekend of the 18th...the count down begins. (this post reads as if a seven year old wrote it- my apologies, i'm tired and slumped on a couch.)

Watermelon

The days are getting progressively lazier. Tuesday morning was a morning of errands and other such lame things followed by meeting up with my old friend Kelsie Roche. I worked housekeeping last summer with Kelsie and have meet back up with her periodically through the year. I dumpstered a big watermelon that we shared up on Queen Anne- she has quite the future ahead of her- six weeks in Europe, weddings, then graduate school in Oklahoma! I always look forward to our meetings, something about cleaning for eight hours a day five days a week creates certain kind of conversation buddy that is quite unique- Godspeed to Kelsie and all her great adventures.

After taking a nice long siesta I tried to write a song for about two hours (didn't work), talked to Javier for a little while and made a new top ramen concoction. I though i'd spice up the regular ol' ramen delio with whatever I could find in the kitchen, here is the recipe:

cook ramen as usual
strain excess spiced water
add milk
add garlic powder
add oregano
add butter
add vanilla extract (oops)
add salt/pepper
microwave until creamy

I don't recommend this spectacular recipe- it's not very good.

I then rode my bicycle all around downtown and through the sculpture park and all the way to the elliot bay yatch clubs and back through magnolia. I dumpstered some corn for dinner and had a fire with the house (minus pj is down in tacoma) and Tyler's friend, Ellen (who is moving to Nashville to start a boutique). I fell asleep to seinfeld.

Cynthia got a macbook! I guess that means we can have video chats and such...although I think video chatting isn't cool any more.. (I think I'm beginning to care less and less about graphic manipulation- if you couldn't already tell)

Being

We are all in post-tour mode...meaning we are all lazing around with little to do except clean and make lists of things we probably should be doing. I have been spending a great deal of my brain power on two things: India and how cynthia and I are going to meet up next month. I'll keep you updated on both.

Tyler and I have been cleaning our computers. He made me a new banner for this bloggy blog thing (notice how great^). I visited Alex McCully at the SPU library. My beard taking over my face. I dumpstered some coffee cake for breakfast and we all went to Rock Salt for some happy hour hamburgers. Things are well here, relaxing and relaxing. PJ is trying to hook up a surround sound system my parents gave him so we can watch and Indiana Jones...or maybe Undercover Brother.
I miss Cynthia.

See Rattle

Our final show out of our consistent string of shows has been cancelled. We were suppose to play Spokane Washington tonight (23rd) but as it turns out we may or may not be on the bill for a totally unpromoted show five hours over the mountains. Feeling that it was not fiscally nor emotionally responsible to play our there right now, we cut it off. Oh well, we are all tired anyhow.

We had a lovely time in Marysville with Lerin's family and friends. We played Sunday (22nd) evening at a friend's house (Nick) on the outskirts of Marysville. Talk about a slick sweet pad...Nick's place was on top of a hill looking over the valley with the cascades in the background- amazing! We played in his huge, open backyard for about 25 people. It was a good time and ended with a nice, warm campfire. Tyler, PJ and I drove back to Seattle after fraternizing with new friends for a while. Thus ends our roadtrip up and down the coast. What great fun and adventure! Thank you to everyone who came out to our shows, let us stay at their house, and sent us nice, encouraging electronic letters.

Next on the list of summer adventure is: lazing around Seattle until we play at Chop Suey (July 1) and I fly back to Moorpark for the month of July.

Mary(sville) Sunday

And here I am. Spending Sunday morning sitting in Lerin's living-room watching some random thriller movie in spanish with Lerin's sister and friend and PJ. Tour is fun, tiring, hot, and fun. I couldn't have asked to be driving up and down the length of the United States with better people. We have three more shows left. I'll try to keep this better updated with more exciting and insightful thoughts rather than quick summery nonsense.
Things to do: get vaccinations for India

South Coast v. North Coast

We stayed in Moorpark again after the Santa Monica show and then left early the next morning to get down to San Diego to play at the U31 Lounge (18th). We got to SD a bit early so Lerin and I bopped around to some thrift stores while PJ and Tyler worked on their laptop machines. The U31 was a super swanky place complete with fancy bar, pool tables and slick booths. We played first and people seemed to really enjoy our music. After lots of conversations with random people we left to get back to Moorpark for some sleep and thus beginning our long trek to Salem, Oregon. We got to Moorpark at about 3:30am and left about 7am for Monterey. We had a nice dinner at Pj's place and spent some time in the ocean with Sydney the dog.
We got up bright and early (6am) on Friday to begin what would become a 14 hour drive to Salem Oregon to play at the Ike Box (20th). We showed up at the Box just in time and had a good time. The crowed was small but people seemed to enjoy the music. We grabbed some mexican food after the show with some newfound friends from some of the other bands. Our now friend, Andrew who works at the box plays in a great great band whom we played with a while back, Symmetry/Symmetry, is playing in Seattle on Wednesday (June 25th)- everyone should go see them!
We slept in plenty on Saturday (21st) at Tyler's parents house in Salem and laid low and made some t-shirts that afternoon. We headed up to Portland that evening in time to walk around town a bit and set up to play at the Towne Lounge right downtown. As we were walking around town before the show I ran into an old friend whom I haven't seen or heard from in about three years! Kelsie Davis, and old friend from church is going to school in Portland and was walking around with a friend- what are the chances!? We got Kelsie and her friend on the guest list and they came by and watched us play. The Towne Lounge is a cool little basement bar in Portland- tiny stage but some fun people work there. The crowd was dead which made for a difficult show, but it was fun nonetheless. We left after the subsequent band played and headed North for Marysville, WA (Lerin's home) to play a house show on Sunday (22nd).

Hollywood Home

It was bloody hot in Southern California, more so than I had remembered. We stopped by an In N' Out before entering LA (which was yum yum). We got to the venue a little early and just walked around the strip to waste some time. We were playing with my high school friends, Indian Giver, which was very exciting because I hadn't seen them since summer and they are very very good! My whole family came out! It was so good to see them and I was very very excited to play for them and show them something that I had been working on for the last year. Along with the family my good friend Jim Krill along with Matt and Max came by, which was a real treat. They are now in Peru for a few weeks- godspeed, friends. We played well and were warmly received- we sold tons of cds and met some great people. After the show I went home with my family (for father's day) while the band moved further South to Yorba Linda to say with some friends.
Father's Day (15th) was nice. I was able to be at home with my family for the day and celebrate my father's fatherness. I hadn't seen my family for quite some time and it was good to catch up with them all. My brother and I drove out to Yorba Linda that night where I met back up with the band.
We had Monday (16th) off so we spent the day at Venice beach swimming and burying lerin in the sand. We met up with my good friend Mike Harrington, which was really nice- I always look forward to meeting back up with Mike during my breaks at home. We traveled back to my home in Moorpark where we had thai food and watched Denzel Washington.
We spent the day tuesday relaxing in Moorpark, working on t-shirts and practicing for our acoustic set that evening. We played that evening at a janky dive bar in Santa Monica, 14 Below. It was...odd. Mike and Alana (our friend in Yorba Linda) came and watched us play a couple acoustic tunes. The place was full of characters to say the least. And we met a dog that was 90% wolf.

Patrick Q. Hickey..

After spending the evening at PJ's and waving goodbye to Cynthia and our friends we drove down to Hollywood, CA to play the Knitting Factory (14th). As we left Pj's house I was checking my email via Tyler's iphone (which has been a blessing to have google maps on the road) when I received a troubling letter from my good friend Patrick's good friend from Cleveland, Adam. He mentioned Pat had been in a terrible bike accident and that I should give Adam a call.
Here I will take a break and tell ya'll about Patrick Hickey and what happened. I met Pat my freshman year while volunteering at Operation Nightwatch in Seattle one evening Winter quarter. He was hip, happenin' and had long curly hair. Dan Zimmer mentioned something about Pat playing bass which naturally sparked conversation between Pat and I on the way back to campus. Turns out he was the only person I have met who is equally as in love with Joan of Arc (band) and the whole Kinsellas crew. For those of you who don't know of JOA: they are and avant-rock indie band from Chicago...no one in the mainstream likes them. From this conversation Lt. John Dunbar was formed. We played our first show about a month later...Dunbar, the bass/guitar instrumental duo with James Earl Jones reading Hebrews became mildly famous on the SPU campus and was invited to play many events throughout the next year and a half. From playing in Dunbar Pat and I became good friends- so good that he along with some other homies enticed me to live on their dorm floor the following year. Spending most of my time (when not with the band) with Pat and our newfound friend Sean Hamilton, we had many crazy adventures together. We built bikes together, played music together and schemed together. Pat, feeling SPU wasn't the place for him moved back to Cleveland in the Spring to become a bike messenger (his dream). We in Seattle all waved sadly goodbye as he moved back to the brown town. Keeping in pretty good contact throughout the spring we were looking forward to a patrick visit in the fall (he did indeed wiggle himself into a bike messengering position). Amidst planning a Lt. John Dunbar reunion show, and perhaps another STP ride I received this email from his Cleveland friend, Adam. (oh there is so much more I could write about Pat and our two short years as friends, but I figure this will do for now..)
I preceded to call Adam while leaving PJ's house that morning (14th). Pat's bike accident was fatal. He had pasted away while in a coma (or something to that effect) friday night. It was a depressing and quiet seven hour car ride to Hollywood. I spent our gas and reststops calling friends from Seattle passing the news and morning together. It was (is) hard deal with all this while being on tour and busy or driving 99% of the time. It was nice to be with friends, friends who knew and loved Pat, but it was hard because we had a million things to do between then and that evening.

Tour Begins

My band, Aurora, left Seattle Washington on June 10th to get down to Orangevale (Sacramento) California for our first show of our tour. We stayed the night in my cousin's backyard on Wednesday (11th) and spent the following day with their kids making band t-shirts, swimming in the pool and hangin' in the coldisack. My Castle relatives were so generous and sweet- we ate like kings (and queen) and felt right at home. Thursday night (12th) we played at a local venue, Club Retro. ALL of my cousins and their friends came. We were playing with a bunch of local hardcore bands and didn't quite fit in, but it went quite well nonetheless. about 250+ kids came out for the show and we sold tons of merch followed by great compliments- what a great way to start our tour.
We drove down to our good friend Danielle Bradford's house in Pleasanton, CA after the Retro show to stay the night. My ladyfriend (for those of you who don't know: Cynthia) was there staying the night as well, which was a lovely surprise. We all (including our friends) drove down to PJ's place down in Monterey, CA the next morning where we began to set up for our first house show. PJ's long time friend, David, let us use his big and beautiful backyard/courtyard area to play some tunes while the sun set and the fog rolled along. There were probably thirty or so friends, family and acquaintances that came out- it was a good time, to be sure. Our friend from school, Andrew Smith, who just so happened to live in the area came out with his brothers- which was totally great and unexpected!

Summer 2008

Friends, friends! Here it is, summer break. For those of you who don't know, this summer will be full of adventure for me. It all begins by going on tour with my band, Aurora then being home in California for a few weeks, being in India for a month and then being back in Seattle beginning the creation of the G8 community house. With such a busy and exciting summer and being away from friends and family I figured I'd create a bloggy thing for ya'll to keep updated and of course for my own records. I got a late start and spent the morning catching up with the tour thus far.