"spaniard, you shoud see the coliseum"

After literally blowing away 17 Euros worth of internet connection on YouTube (who knew Data transfers mattered when paying that much for economy class internet?), I'm back with some info while Mike sits on the shitter, threatening to throw me off my own computer. I just heard him struggle with a poo hahahah. Eat shit Bart.

Italy has been fantastic. I touched the Coliseum. I could honestly end this post with that. It was one of the maybe six things I want to experience before I die, and I did it only days ago. I actually broke off a chunk, took a picture of the broken wall, and kept the piece. some day I'll chew your ear off with my explanation. I also saw the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, as well as the Last Judgement.

Yesterday, Mike and I sat on a beach below Positano , drank Peroni, and looked at bare tits. Life was really tough by this point. I also had the opportunity to photograph a nice series of Italian kids on the beach, once the bare-chested nudity subsided, of course.

I experienced really bad jet lag for the first four days, which is something very far from my character because I'm normally quite adaptive to changing time zones. Around 4 p.m. here in Italy (we're six hours ahead of the Ontario time zone), I'd crash and wake up again around 1 in the morning, exhausted.

The land here is mysterious, and I haven't quite wrapped my head around the people, cuisine, or the language. Seeing as I had some lag at the beginning of the trip, I'm just starting to get into the swing of things. I haven't had a glass of wine yet, in 6 days.
The itinerary looks really exciting. Tomorrow we visit Pompeii. I know what happened there, but am not sure what it looks like exactly. I want to see some crusty bodies! haha. Holy shit this is informal. Speaking of informal, here comes the mind flood. Fuck this sentence shit.

I miss my friends. All of them. Specifically, I miss freestyling at 26.5 Glasgow and kissing Tess. She's pretty. Call me a cheesy motherfucka : don't give a fuck.

My beard is getting hefty, and I'm debating whether or not cutting it off. Please, no comments by those who sponsor my beard.

Honestly, if you read this, email me your address. You'll get a postcard. If you haven't, or I haven't asked yet, here's your opportunity. I'm very good for sending postcards.

I had heat stroke-dizzyness today. Skipped out on a dinner and watched Party All The Time for the most part. Faxe followed.

The lemons here are the size of grapefruits. TGRI would have something to say about this. Anyone who catches this reference is a nineties guru!

Don't be afraid to send me texts people. Recieving them is free. I have my phone on several times throughout the day.

We only get CNN and BBC here in Italy. Buncha dry mothafuckas. GAAAAWWWWWW.

I'm excited to see my band again. I've been listening to our demos for our new record while on this trip and am so bloody excited to record this summer.

Time to go finish my 1L can of Faxe, which I bought for 2.50 Euro.

tour photos

metal on metal!

Last night the boys and I watched Anvil! The Story of Anvil

It's a documentary on the 80's metal band Anvil. The film circulates around all their trials and tribulations over the past 30 years. It's incredibly well done.

The nice thing about watching this doc when we did, is that we are currently going through some of the same issues they went through while on tour. No pay, can'd gigs, low attendance, stuff like that. So you can image how nice it was nice to sit back and watch other bands freak out for an hour, except Lips (lead guitar and vocals) would assault the club managers. I'm still trying to get Dan to try that.


So yeah, watch this movie, even if you don't like metal.

Dear East Coast, Part 1

So far so good.

Our tour of the east coast has, so far, gone without a hitch. Actually, it's had many hitches. Trailer hitches! Terrible joke.

After a slightly rocky start involving break lights, Canadian Tire, and a mechanic named Marc, we were on the road. Darcy and I have been driving like true champions. Par example: We drove from Kingston, Ontario to St. George, New Brunswick in one day. Considering that we're pulling a trailer as heavy as our own van, it took us a considerably longer time than expected. 20 hours straight to be exact.

Once finished, it really was worth it. We worked in roughly five hour-long shifts behind the wheel. For those of you who know at least minimal Canadian geography, we also drove through Quebec. We planned on stopping in Montreal for some lunch, but the two hours it took just to squeeze through the rush hour traffic scared us pretty straight. Maybe on the way back. Quebec was awesome though. We stopped in some smaller towns to nab some food and gas. This also meant that we had to squeeze every ounce of the French language out of our heads. Yet, to be totally honest, I really love that about foreign territory (both literally and figuratively).

It's really quite a thrill to challenge yourself in such scenarios. We went to Subway for dinner that night. Before we arrived, I mustered up as many phrases, subjunctives, verbs, questions, and items in my head as possible. The girl working spoke very little English, so I did my best to accommodate her. Let's just say I ended up with a douze-inch jambon sub, sur neuf-grain pain, avec concombres, fromage, tomates, olives, sel et poivre. Life is funny like that.

After that, we drove all night. I don't recall if I wrote anything about driving all night last summer on the way to Vancouver, but I really dislike it for many reasons. For starters, it really fucks with your sleep pattern. On top of that, if the back seat of your van is filled with coolers and merchandise boxes, you're in for an awful nap. I didn't sleep a wink because I'm over 6' tall boy crammed into a 3' compartment. Outside of the sleep, you have to worry about hitting animals. Seeing as we were driving through the marshes and woods, we were in prime deer and moose territory. Warning signs litter the highway for hours.

The only thing harder than looking out for animals all night is the actual staying awake part. If my memory serves me, I began my portion of driving around 2:30 AM. As we stopped to refill our tank, I stared coldly into my least favorite section of any convenience store: the energy drinks. For those of you who know me, even badly, know that I steer away from energy drinks to save my heart from beating out of control. But alas, I needed something to keep me from dreaming behind the wheel. I settled on Monster mostly for traditions-sake. BK and I drank that last summer on our only one-nighter through north Ontario, so I drank that for my brosky. Let's just say it worked.

We cut our way through the fog and rolled into St. George around 6:30 in the morning. We rolled up to some parking lot and (tried to) sleep.

Several hours later we set up camp in the most ghetto trailer park I'd ever seen, which is just fine. Water and hydro is all we really need. Once set up, we showed up for soundcheck at Paul's Wharf. We honestly didn't expect much from this show. St. George is a super small town, full of weird people that just sit on street corners. The venue was pretty much what we expected: ski-lodge interior, a big Jager banner, a semi-hot bartender (the kind that drunk old perv-bots find beddable), video lottery machines, a dusty old patio, one really drunk guy, and a menu filled with fried shit. The place maybe sees a dozen different guys on a daily basis, because the ones who do show up just get drunk and pump quarters all day.

Aside from first impressions, the show went fantastic. Lots of people showed up, payed the cover, and enjoyed the show. Morton our sound man provided us with excellent monitors. Many stuck around for both of our sets, and even bought some albums. Between our two sets I smoked some cheeb with the locals, which proved for a very interesting second set. Let's just say the first 15 minutes were spent over-dubbing the various club tracks that were playing. We made a substantial amount of loot to boot, because we apparently took in all of the money at the door.

Kim, the wonderful organizer and bartender, was so hospitable in every way. She hooked us up with a bunch of contacts along the way, gave us free coffee with breakfast this morning, and let us in on the free Joel Plaskett show in St. Johns on Canada Day.

Like I said. So far so good. More to come, I just need more battery life.