Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Almost home

Tonight is our last show in England for this tour.

We have a five hour drive to,
and a five hour drive immediately following.

We catch the plane at 5 pm tomorrow.

We land,
sleep for a day,
and then drive to a show in Appleton, WI.

It's been a great tour,
I have tons of videos,
and stories to tell,
they will all come in due time.

Thanks for everything, English people,
it's been really, really cool.

We've booked our first show for the next UK tour.
September 1, 2006 - in Bideford, Devon.

Yeeeee haw.

-p

Saturday, March 25, 2006

Times

It's times like these,
that I couldn't be happier.

We played in Bideford, Devon last night.
Lovely town, lovely people.

I was in Bristol yesterday.
Lovely place, Bristol.

They have a huge cathedral.
Built in the 1300's,
beautiful, massive, quiet.

I'm not much of a religious guy, myself,
but I do appreciate the quiet power of a big, old church.

I like to walk in and look around,
silently observing and thinking about the
masses that came here for salvation.

Silent,
observing,
reflecting.

Noticing,
the young man
and two boys
moving the drum set
and set of xylophones.

Hmmm..
must have been some music
in last night's service.

Walking,
observing,
reflecting,
whispering to the old lady,
"may i have a pamphlet?"
".....thank you..."
(whisper)

Quiet,
silent.

...

Ba BUM ba da DUM,
bum BA dummmmm,
ba ba BUM ba DA dum...
BUM ba ba da dummm...

The A-TEAM theme song....

loud as hell.

played on drum set and xylophone.

Blaring like a banshee
through the 1300's Bristol
Cathedral at mid-day.

With only myself,
a few tourists,
and the two old-lady caretakers
to bare witness.

Of all songs,
of all times and places...
the A-Team theme song?

Are you kidding me?

And no one flinched,
the old ladies did not make
a move to stop this awful racket.

We just all turned,
and listened to the entire
A-Team theme song,
played in a church,
by two young boys
on a xylophone
and full drum set.

We also saw a camel,
but that was later,
outside of Bristol.

-p

Thursday, March 23, 2006

a Library in Sheffield

I'm sitting here in a public library in Sheffield.

It's comforting to know
that wherever you go,
anywhere in the world,
libraries have the same smell.

It's that curious mixture of old books and stinky people.

I'm not feeling so well.

A bit too much partying and not enough sleeping
has left me with a trace of a cold.

We had to call off a stop at an open mic in
Leeds last night.

We slept for hours at a travelodge instead.

I've gotten two criticisms about this journal,
or blog, or whatever you call it.

The first was from one of the female rugby players in Bath.

She was very insulted that I said
she and her team mates smelled like grass.

My only response, really,
is that they did.

They smelled like grass.

I'm not sure how that is insulting.

I think I stumbled onto some
bound up rage that exists within
the American female rugby community.

I'll have to look into it more.

I got another criticism
regarding the show in Preston,
and how I didn't mention it in the journal.

To be fair,
every day here in England has been amazing.

Every show has been fun,
some more than others,
but all at least interesting.

If there is one thing about English audiences,
they really listen.

When they listen,
and pay attention to me,
and to Kristen, and to eachother,
crazy shit can happen.

Forgive me,
America,
if I have been
insulting you or your rugby players.

Obviously,
if you have taken
the time to read this,
than you probably listen
at shows.

But I want you to look around,
and watch your peers.
Their attention span is so short,
I can grab them one minute,
and the next they are off talking
to someone about the Miller Lite special.

I have some new strategies for playing
when I get back.

I listened to Bill Hicks,
I had never heard him before.

It was a tape of him
in front of a surly audience.

And he just laid into them about everything.

It was brilliant.

I'm no Bill Hicks,
never will be,
but I hope to learn something
from his intolerance for idiot audiences.

Once again,
if you're reading this,
than I'm excluding you from
that lumped group,
you are obviously not an idiot.

But remember the Cubby Bear?
And the girl asking for ...
shit, what was that shitty band?
Oh yeah, Dashboard Confessional.

Or the Springfield kareoke machine guy?

The incident I feel best about was the Pub II.
No turning off the TVs, no show.
I felt like I stood up for something that day,
even if it was small and dumb.

We aren't stupid Americans,
not all of us anyway.

But man,
we sure are surrounded by them.

And we certainly are represented by them in government.

But we don't have to think it's okay.

The next time I play some redneck town,
I'm going to play the Bush Song four times,
and then I'm going to tell the guy who gets pissed
that he looks really sexy in his shirt,
and then I'm going to tell the drooling moron
who wants to hear more Radio Head that he is a drooling moron,
and then I'm hopefully going to get kicked out of more bars.
But at least there will be one or two people in the crowd who saw it
and thought it was awesome, or at least interesting.

There is so much garbage crap spoonfed to us every day,
it seems that a lot of Americans don't even know how to think anymore.

People here ask me about America a lot.

I tell them,
%40 percent of Americans are the coolest people you will ever meet.
%20 are just normal.
and the other %40 are the biggest, self-serving morons in the world.

Scary part is:
those morons seem to reproduce a lot faster.

They have morons here too,
they call them Chavs.

with love,

-p

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Tired Today

Sleeping has been interesting.

On a different bed
or floor
or couch
every night.

I wake up often and don't
know where the hell I am.

Seriously, for like 45 seconds,
its dark, and I don't remember where I am.

Even sober,
which does happen every now and then.

You can't party every night, you know?

I am longing for a nice, long, indulgent, American shower.
They don't get showers quite right over here,
always something a bit off.

Last night was our return trip to Sunderland University.

Land of the Un-ending Party.

I usually play stone sober,
as some people know,
but last night,
I started doing some shots
with English Brendan.

It was a quiet audience,
Monday night after St Patricks weekend,
the crowd was a bit subdued,
all sitting and waiting to see what would happen.

My first show here last November was so fun,
I was frightened of letting them down.

I'm not sure why,
but when I get that feeling,
I somtimes get drunk on stage.

Just to see what will happen.

If nothing else,
it should be interesting.

It certainly was that.

Highlights:
the sixth shot
the band breaking up onstage.
the reunion.
Me taking my pants and underpants off,
Kristen taking her top off.
changing into some yellow t-shirt.
the tenth shot.

I don't know how it went,
I hope it was good.

I wasn't so drunk
that I didn't know what was happening,
but I couldn't tell what the audience
was thinking.

I tried to be funny,
I think people were laughing.

If it was better than the first time or not,
I'll never know, but I think it was at least interesting.

We got the whole show on video,
hopefully I will be getting a DVD in the mail soon.

I'd like to see that one.

-p

Monday, March 13, 2006

.[}-{]<

dang.

I'm listening to strange hip hop
at a place full of dudes smoking pot
and wearing hats and drinking coffee.

the internet here is 1 euro for 20 minutes.
not bad.

the white widdow skunk weed is 20 euro for 4.5 grams.

not bad.

coffee is tasty too.
so are the giant, delicous cookies.
they are big and filled with
some sort of sweet almond pasty goo-butter.
oh,

yeah.

tasty pasty goo-butter.

the hip hip is not so good.

i think i meant to say hip hiop.
hip hiop?

i meant hip hop.

that's it,
hip,
hop.

holy shit this is strong weed.

my fingers feel finnny...
funny.

i meant funny.

whoa, they feel real heavy,
they feel like heavy fingers,
heavy fingers,
heavy fingers.

there are a lot of american dudes in here right now.

it's a relatively american friendly place.

they don't really like tourists much here.

they take tourist money,
but they don't like you,
and don't pretend to.

English people are friendly,
or at least looking forward to being friendly.

Dutch people are tall.

Amsterdam weed is fucking awesome.

Brian Jack lives here.

He does comedy in Boom Chicago.

He also has soft mattresses and
four big joints rolled for the visit.

we started with 4 last night at midnight.

we have one left at 5:36 pm Amsterdam time.

I gotta go.

p-

Sunday, March 12, 2006

Nice Peter Spreads Racism in Preston, UK

I can't stop chuckling to myself.

Last night we played
at the Adelphi club in Preston... England.

Two songs into the set,
a giant bald man started
waving three fingers at me in what
I could only assume was some sort
of insulting, British, sign language.

(If you hold up two fingers it means:
"fuck off" or "you're French")

But this was three fingers in sort
of a wanking motion.

I could not tell at first if he was pleased, or pissed off.

I think I was singing 50 Cent is a Pussy,
so maybe he was in the G-Unit posse.

Either way, it distracted me enough to stop the song,
and ask what he was tying to say.

I stopped, and said "excuse me sir, but what are you trying to say...?
it's cool, you've got the floor, get it off your chest"

Now, I'm not sure what I was expecting.
Maybe, "you swear too much" or "you're an idiot",
maybe even "good show, man"

The audience was quiet, me and Kristen were stopped,
all ears on bald guy.

"You are a racist shithouse!"

Whoa.

That's a new one.

A racist?
shithouse?

Very creative insults,
but I had no idea what
he was talking about.

I didn't mean to,
but I laid into him.

That was a bad idea.

I think he was going to leave.
But instead, he stayed the rest of the show,
right in the middle, glaring at me.

Occasionally, he would shake his head,
but he was always right there, dead center,
staring at me like only a big, British, bald guy can.

Fuck.

I was scared.
I'll admit it.

I didn't want to end up getting
fed to the pigs like some skinny
character in Snatch.

He was a scary looking guy,
and apparently he thought I was racist,
and not too pleased about it.

Needless to say, he really threw off my concentration.

Firstly because he was big and obviously crazy,
and staring right at me on stage while I was trying to perform.
(I felt like the rich golfer in Happy Gilmore)

Secondly because I was trying to figure out
why the hell he thought I was being racist.

After the show,
I was talking to some friends
about the whole ordeal.

We all agreed he was a nut,
and I asked,
"why did he think I was racist?"

Their reply:

"oh, because said nigger a dozen times
in the first song..."

Huh?

what... wait... what?

When did I say nigger?

I didn't say nigger,
why would I say nigger on stage?

They said, "oh yes you did, it was hilarious.. real balls, man."

No, that's not balls, saying "nigger" in a room full of white people is easy.
Cowardly, almost. Saying "nigger" at the Trace Hip-Hop and Spoken word open mic in Chicago,
that would be balls.

Regardless, I didn't say nigger.

Certainly not a dozen times.

...

I was confused.

I went to bed drunk and confused.

Luckily,
my friend Ed,
the editor of HedMag (www.hedmag.co.uk)
recorded the whole set.

This morning we listened,
intent on finding the truth.

Ed swore I said nigger a dozen times.
Not only that, but I also commented on how
I could say it in the UK, but not the US.

It was in the first song,
not even, just the rambling
introduction to the first song.

I was talking about my underwear being sweaty,
real charming stuff.

I said "my underwear is dripping with sweat."
And then I said "maybe I should just say knickers"

Knickers. A British term for underpants.

"Cause I can say knickers in the UK,
but I can't say knickers in the USA,
Knickers, knickers, knickers"

Oh...
ha ha ha ha.

That sure did sound like niggers.
It really did.
That makes a lot more sense now.

Oops.

Well,
rest assured,
there was no intended
racist propaganda last night.
A simple misunderstanding.

...

..

White power.

-p

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

2 Minute Update

I only have two minutes for this entry.

I am at a hostel in a YMCA in Bath, UK.

We had the day off today.

Some sort of American Rugby team just showed up,
turns out they're from Yale.

Female rugby players from Yale all around me,
too bad they smell like grass,
and not the Amsterdam kind.

Speaking of Amsterdam,
we are going there in two days to visit my good friend Brian.

oops,
my time is up....

-p

Monday, March 06, 2006

my name is kristen

i play the drums.

after driving until 4am
last night,
i kinda feel like i got hit
by a truck today,

but the uk still rules.

driving has been challenging.
i keep hitting the windshield wiper
when i wanna turn left.

lotta new symbols here...
there's these tall thingys
that look like barber poles
with these large yellow
ping pong balls on top
that blink...

that's when i remember
to let the pedestrians cross.

they have fold-up plastic forks here.

they don't believe in street signs.
if there happens to be some type of
building at the intersection
that's where a sign just might be--
bring your binoculars.

people are so unbelievably
accomodating and generous here.
they go way out of their way to help you.
they've got passion for life
that is adorable to me
and very refreshing.

their keyboards are messed up.
the @ sign is near return
not above the '2'
i keep hitting the '#' sign
when i wanna backspace.

i'm off to the loo now...

-k

Thursday, March 02, 2006

London Calling

Today is day one,
officially,
of the March 2006 UK tour.

We landed yesterday,
but spent the whole
day in a fog of Jet lag
and confusion.

Kristen Regester must be applauded
on her driving efforts, jumping
right into the thick of things
on the wrong side of the road.

We landed at London Heathrow,
our private car-hire man,
Peter Waugh, met us at the airport
with our rental, a 1992 Nissan Micro.

Kristen got in the drivers seat,
I got in the passenger seat with a map,
and we threw ourselves out onto M4,
a main highway outside of London.

Jesus Christ.

"Too close!"

"I know..!"

"too.. close.. on the left!"

"I know, be quiet, turn the radio off!"

"turn right here, stay on the left, turn right, left"

"argh..."

"too close!"

"I know, shut-up.. which way?"

"turn right on the left..."

Jesus Christ.

Kristen made this relatively intelligent observation:
Next time, in America, when you see a man and woman driving
slow and making strange arch-ing turns, before you yell at them,
consider this, they might be from England.

-p