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Saturday, April 14, 2012
Day 3
in Boise, ID
Les Schwab had one kind of tire that fit the van, and they were “premium.” Read: “A lot more than normal people will spend on tires.” Tour is expensive; we did sell a CD to a guy at Les Schwab.
There was absolutely nothing around us but fast food, gas stations, and wind. Staggering to a gas station in desperate need of a Vitamin Water (or something... anything... to combat the after effects of last night's consolation drinking binge) the wind nearly knocked me over. Welcome to the high desert.
I barely made it to the salvation of Shell station rehydration... I slept in the van, crawled out, and made my way slowly down the block only to be interrupted by "Sir? Sir!"
People only call me sir when they want something.
"Is that your van?"
This conversation could have gone one of two ways: I could have broke down, crying, and pleading "I just need some water and an asprin!" It went the other way-- I moved the van to where they wanted it, I stumbled into the office, and I had what might pass as a conversation with the woman behind the Les Schwab counter. I spotted Joel rounding the corner, drug him into the office, and replaced myself with someone who could stand, under his own power, without leaning. Okay: Shell station.
I was pretty useless for most of the afternoon, sleeping, and listening to Metric. I probably wasn't supposed to be in the van while they were jacking it up and installing $300 worth of tire, but no one woke me up, so...
For the record, don't do any booking with the toomuchdistortion@wherever.com; Michelle had been corresponding with him for weeks, had a show booked, and he fell silent about two weeks before tour. No response on emails or facebook messages... we eventually raised him on the phone to have him tell us he “just didn't know” about the show. And so here we are, with no show on a Saturday night.
We told this to Eric (from Slave Traitor), our on-the-road merch guy and tour companion, and the toomuchdistortion guy did the same thing to Slave Traitor. We lost Eric this morning due to bloody puke, and he's back in Seattle by now. Michelle suggests he might not have been prepared for how nerdy we can be, too, but blood in the vomit and other tubercular symptoms pretty much demand a somewhat healthier lifestyle than we're living right now.
Saturday night in Boise was kind of creepy, and Main Street was packed with a Pioneer Square kind of crowd. We found a bar that wasn't too crazy, with no cover, and a funk rock band... which actually wasn't bad. None of us really perk up when someone offers us "funk rock," but the band was talented: tight bass, a good trumpeter, lots of 70s covers. By comparison, the piped-in music on the patio was unbearable.
At the end of the night, we actually met the booker who screwed us-- it was his birthday, and he'd just come from a show, which makes all of his excuses for canceling on us sound even sketchier. We probably could have crashed on his floor (he owed us that much), but it didn't seem like a very good idea: the bartender at The Red Room says his last birthday saw him naked in the street, and we just wanted to get some sleep.
We rolled into a residential neighborhood with street parking, pulled out sleeping bags, and crashed in the van.
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