A certainly incomplete account of the last three days or so

Allow me to state the obvious: castles are awesome. Unless you're a
thirteenth century serf or something, which I hope you aren't. Castles
are like cowboys and dinosaurs and pirates; some things are so awesome
they cannot be denied. The thing is, you don't run across too many
cowboys or pirates nowadays, and you can only see dinosaurs in the very
best zoos, so the truly awesome can seem unattainable. For us, that all
changed in Salem.

See, we Birdmonsters and Division Dayers stayed in a Castle. And yeah,
that's capitalized on purpose. We're talking suits of armor,
taxidermied boar heads, wall-mounted swords, pipe organs, turets, stone
walls---hell, they had a dungeon with a skeleton in it. A plastic
skeleton, mind you, which was certainly reassurring, but there was a
dungeon. I know. You're sure I'm joking. At the very least exagerrating.
Just wait for the pictures.

Salem was the second stop on this now four day old tour and the castle
was the property of DDay's drummer Kevin's Aunt and Uncle. I wish I
could say they were wearing velvet capes, but, sadly, they were not.
They were benevolent monarchs who took us out for pancakes and fed us
beer and even came out to the show at the Ike Box in Salem. See, if the
kings and queens of yore were that thoughtful, there wouldn't have been
all those nasty peasant revolutions and all that unfortunate beheading.
The show they attended in Salem was a ball and we learned something
important too: don't book an all-ages show on Prom night. That tends to
hurt the draw. Oh. And the band that headlined, the Black Black Black,
were awesome. Not castle awesome, but certainly dinosaur awesome.
There's a subtle, important difference.

After the show was when we saw the castle for the first time, at night,
all underlit like some Czech stone monstronsity. I went inside and
cackled in every room. I still can't get over it, obviously. Tours were
given, beers were drank, sleep was had. The next day, we went down to
the castle's sheep pasture (true) and played a ferocious game of
wiffleball. And let this be a warning to you: don't play wiffleball in a
sheep pasture. Poop everywhere. Including Brett's jeans.

That night we had the innevitable blotto show in Portland, which I blame
on 50 cent PBRs. I think all members of both bands ended up playing some
sort of percussion implement for the other, as we combined to create the
savage being Rohner named Bivisionmonster. It was my favorite show thus
far---sure it was...modestly attended and a little sloppy, but anytime
you can stumble onstage with a tamborine and rock out with your friends
is a good time.

I owe you a story about Seattle and the woman with seven stomach rolls,
a bikini top, and a permenent place in The Haggard Old Cow-Woman Hall of
Fame, but this is long enough thus far. Pictures soon---I hope---and
Spokane tonight. L'chaim.