In which Birdmonster battles snafus, logistical nightmares, plays BFD, and somehow arrives in New York City

Here's the thing about festivals: too many
employees and none of them know what's going on.
We spent an hour being shuffled between gates,
kiosks, huts, shanties, lean-to's, inflatable
armadillos, and security guards with Napolean
complexes until finding a couple quality individuals
who used their walkie-talkies for a righteous
cause: namely, allowing us inside the venue we
were playing. BFD was quite the shindig, I must
admit: four seperate stages, $40 beers, perfect
weather, Anti-Flag, who, cryptically enough,
played surrounded by Bud Light ads (but then
again, so did we), and a veritble sea of humanity.
We stayed mostly by the local stage, getting free
shoes (thanks Ted), sour bagels, a rather touching
photo album (thanks Sherman clan), and a couple
sunburns. After the set, we had to scramble home,
being that we had an hour drive and a Super
Shuttle waiting to ferry us off to Oakland
International. Sleep and relaxation: highly
overrated.

Yet, somehow it all worked out and we made it to
the airport in time to choke down some Round
Table, the undisputed king of shit pizza. I flew to
New York via Vegas, Dave through O'Hare, while
Zach & Pete had a fancy-pants direct flight. They
all missed the degenerate glory that is Las Vegas
International. Basically, we're talking rows of slot
machines, those depressing glass coffin smoking
corals (also filled with video poker, naturally), and
an inordinate amount of advertisements for
caffienated beers and greasy male strip-joints. My
flight was delayed by a good hour and a half, and I
must say (and not without pride) that I avoided
the slots. My fellow captives were not so lucky:
my plane neighbor, who sported a platinum grill and
a very deliberately designed shaved head with
Oakland's area code above either temple,
confessed to losing fifty bucks in the span of a
single cigarette. Joke's on you Vegas; I don't even
have fifty bucks.

We all arrived the next morning, exuding various
levels of jet-lagged loopiness, on three different
planes at two different airports, all luggage
accounted for, all instruments intact
(miraculously enough: the banjo is in a flimsy
backpack and ended up "valeted" at the gate,
which, in layman's terms, means no one
deliberately threw it against anything sharp or
jagged).

And then there's issue of the van. We'd planned on
renting a trailer and pulling it with Peter's folk's
old SUV. Of course, this was before we discovered
some moron had rolled their Ford Explorer while
towing a trailer & now, for fear of getting re
-sued, U-Haul wouldn't rent us one. Of course,
they <i>will</i> rent to a Mercury Mountaineer,
which is the exact same fucking car, but when it
comes to U-Haul, it's best to avoid reason and
intelligence and just absorb their arbitrary
punishment. Long story not exactly short, we're
cruising around in an anonymous E350 we were
forced to rent from a shady dude in New York,
who, when we asked if he had the van's cuts and
bruises on record, said "I know what they are man.
Have I ever lied to you?"

We took pictures.

We need a good name for this white, scuffy
monstrosity. So far though, nothing's come to
mind. Care to take a stab at it? Bueller? Gibson?

So, with our borrowed gear (thanks SpinART) and
our rented van, we're off to Boston for the
official start of this here the Talk/ Birdmonster
East Coast extravaganza. I'll try & maintain this
puppy when I'm not driving or brain-dead, which
might mean once weekly or once daily. You can
never tell. For now, hello East Coast. You talk
way faster than me.