9/27/07 Hollywood, CA

After the San Fran show we drove for about 70 miles and then got a motel, first one of the tour! That’s pretty good, sometimes we get several motels on the road, and that's expensive. Luckily, we've known some very fine people all along the way that have graciously offered their domiciles to us. I don't know if I touched on this before but in Salt Lake the couple we stayed with actually have a room in their house that is just for traveling band. Two bunk beds, wireless router, and a board for staying bands to leave notes tacked to. It wailed. Anyway, that was a while ago, back to Pacific Standard Time. I don't really like staying in motels because my overactive, over-vivid imagination over thinks the idea of the literal thousands of people who have slept in the bed I'm sleeping in. Laid their head on this pillow. Coughed into it. Copulated on it. Died in it. Eeeewwww.
Luckily, I had some drinks that helped put me to sleep at the bar after the show so I got some z's in the back of the van and then I just walked in when we arrived at the motel room and immediately fell asleep. I woke up at 7:00am feeling pretty skeeved out so I got up, washed my beard and brushed my teeth and messed around on the ol' lappy tappy until the other dudes woke up. I remembered at 9:05 that these places have breakfast until 9:00. I said, "shoot".

It was a good drive from San Francisco to Hollywood, we didn't listen to any music almost the entire way until we were getting into town and I put on Cat Power's Covers Record. We got here kinda way early. Like, 3:30 and load in was at 5:30. Luckily the promoter at the Knitting Factory was there and let us come in. The Knitting Factory is a weird place. The way to the green room is verbatim the Cleveland scene in Spinal Tap. A winding catacomb littered with pipes. The green room even had big pieces of meat and cheese and tiny pieces of bread. It wailed. Becky, I think it's just about time you see that movie. After loading in and sitting around for a while, Scott and I went down the street to get some slices of pizza (this is before we found out that they had disproportionate sandwich ingredients). Hollywood Blvd is more like the state fair than any Californian would like to admit. A culmination of textbook stereotypes, any food on any stick and an endless supply of crazy peppered with sadness. And lots of American Apparel stores.

So on to the show. This bullshit band fronted by a rejected American Idol backed by Nashville session musicians opened the show with their lavish video shoot. Evidently, instead of renting the Knitting Factory out for their shoot, they piggybacked on our Tour's show to make their video without telling anyone. It was ridiculous. And pushed the show back an hour. That was lame. Other than that, the show was good. I've been getting to play tambourine in Zookeeper on the song Î live in the mess you are. I love that song.

We are staying with George and Lauren in Pasadena, That's always nice, I love them. Tomorrow is a day off of funness. I'm stoked.