Monday, June 12, 2006

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.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't let anyone ever tell you it's not glamorous being in a rock 'n roll band.

On behalf of the entire East Coast (they let me speak for them every so often), let me say WELCOME! We are very pleased you are here. Black Cat in DC on Tuesday! Yea!

That only took me .03 seconds to type and say out loud. Speak fast? You ain't seen nothin' yet. Wait until you can't understand what they're saying in Boston tonight.

Pahk the cah in Hahvahd yahd. Get some bea-ah at the packy.

Seriousness: hope you guys have a fantastic time.

Anonymous said...

Dude omg u guys were completely awesomely amazing at BFD!!!!!! Of course me being me i spent the time before ur set rounding up my friends and dragging them over there to see u guys, but they acually were like omg like this awesome. Jenna and Sandy thought u guys were like the best band that we saw all day (or heard seeing as were short 13 year old dorks but w/e) but like seriously u guys were like the best ever. All the money wasted on water all day was totally worth seeing u guys. O ya...and I finally got the long awaited Birdmonster shirt after wanting one for like ever. My friends have officially stolen my Birdmonster sweatshirt trying to keep it away from the dreaded washing machine. Aparently sweatshirts drenched in random peoples sweat and smell really funky is worth not being washed because David hugged me while I was wearing it. (o ya...thanks soooo much david that was the best hug of my entire life like u give completely awesome hugs)

ok...well i g2g...i could keep doing this for hours but I doubt that you wanna spend that much time reading this

GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR TOUR!!!

Jim Tenuto said...

Might I suggest a name for the fine E350: "The Whaleship Essex." The Essex was sunk, no shit, by a rogue sperm whale, who repeatedly rammed the ship. Using three whaleboats, the crew of twenty suffered for three months. Only 8 survived, mainly by eating the other twelve guys. Well, not all 12, but you get the idea.

BTW, this story inspired Herman Melville to write "Moby Dick", which may be an even more apt name for the appearently white monstrosity.

Rock on! See you guys in Chicago for a proper hot dog.

Anonymous said...

Hopefully this works. Comment answering on portable internet doohickeys is a tricky proposition, mainly because the page will randomly freeze up just to infuriate me, and also because I can't sign in. Anonymous my ass.

Megan: glad you enjoyed; you currently own, to my knowledge, the only Birdmonster sweatshirt in the universe. Wear it proudly.

Mike/Sandisoverated: damn. I would've totally yelped Tipsy, were we not racing to the airport at top speeds. Although the crowd may not have enjoyed my sour attempts at harmonization. Hope the rest of the afternoon was smashing.

Dahlgreen's Daddy: a few things about the Whaleship Essex. On the one hand, it's hilarious and fairly fitting and extremely fun to type. On the other, we're not quite at our cannabalism yet. Zepplin didn't start eating people until after Physical Graffiti. For now though, I'm going with it.

Sasha: well shit. See you tonight.

Anonymous said...

I wear that thing so proudly (and almost constanly) like u have no idea...i think it might be my favorite posession like ever (even though its worth like absolutly nothing since i made it...so it was free...but since when does money have to do with anything...and plus that makes it more cool...or dorky depending on how u look at it. But if its dorky i like my dorkyness.