Dinner and the main coarse

actually pulled off "punk-funk". We played with them last night and hopefully will again soon...

I don't know why...

I suddenly enjoy pot again

God help me I don't want to get old

Because this is basically what life will be like...

whythefuckdoyouhaveakid.com

Mostly just supremely depressing but...

Maurizio Cattelan

I got pretty into this mainly installation based artist back around 1997 when he seemed to be getting a lot of attention and showing more. I just came across something about him and it reminded me of his work. He did an outdoor installation for the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee when I lived there that was basically a couple of fake homeless people(although very life-like) squatting out in a corner of a building on campus that immediately got stolen by some Wisconsin college students shortly before I got the hell out of that place.

BACK PAIN

It's ruling my life right now. It's all I do. Limp around or go to doctors to try and fix my back pain that has now turned into leg and knee pain. but I have learned a lot of helpful tips from many websites and opinionated people in person:

1. Don't get depressed or stressed out about the fact that you can't live your life like a normal, healthy person or about the fact that you are in constant pain because stress and depression only make your back pain worse.

2. Acupuncture good, chiropractor bad: I'm not sure if I actually believe this, but I've heard it so many times I'm not able to form my own opinion about it.

3. Do THE exercises, but don't exercise. Doctors orders.

4. Older women with no arms and an exo-spine are at greater risk for back problems then younger women with no arms and an exo-spine (see above)

5. "It's all connected" will become your favorite catch-all explaination for why strange pains on other parts of your body come with the back pain. Of course it should feel like someone took a sledgehammer to the bottom of my feet and broke my toes and all my shoes feel 2 sizes too small and I cant bend my knees because I have a "pinched nerve" in my upper back (the awake-magazine-looking chiro-propaganda pamphlets I received at my first chiropractor visit informed me that Pinched nerves are actually very rare and from herein I should refer to my discomfort as "sublaxation")

more later

My 201th post!

again, what I said before..

My 200th post!

I guess I need to start looking at the merc blog more regularily again...

I told you I wasn't worried Tim...

1976 swine flu ad campain to demonstrate how long swine flu can keep in your grandmother's freezer before she thaws out a steak and goes down to mexico for vaca aww fuck it

Chinese Karaoke

The bright side of the economy

1. Really cheap stuff - If you are actually in the position to be buying anything right now, from a flat screen TV to a house, this is a good time for you. If you are not in that position and you find yourself on the side of having to sell all your "valuables" for next to nothing, now is a good time to realize your material things don't have much of a bearing on your happiness(until you find out how much some of those records were worth 5 years later).

2.Pontiac takes a shit - Unless you are a lesbian or one of the 15 people that bought a G6, or you are trying to find parts for your Fiero/Lamborghini kit you won't find this news that hard to take. Most people are going to be more surprised to find out this company was still in business.

3.Customer service - Have you noticed hoe nice people have been at stores lately? Sure, working at Home Depot or Target may not be the most fulfilling existence, but a little reality check that they actually have a steady income and people more "qualified" than them are waiting in line for their shitty job tends to light a spark under some grumpy bottoms. It's nice to not be treated like dogshit when I'm out at a mediocre restaurant, not have to wonder around for hours looking for 'liquid nails', and basically know that I'm not the bain of a persons existence that I'm giving money to.

Anyone care to chime in? I've got more on the way...

russian madness pt.2

I dont have much internets, so ill make it quick. my laptop broke so i have no pictures for the blog.it is crazy here. in true Panther form we werent in town 8 hours before we found ourselves paying off cops , well the girl we were with that jumped the rope that was around Lenins grave in the red square at 3am. oh and BTW forget every exaggeration i have told in my whole life, I have never seen so many unbelievably attractive girls in my life. more when home

Best/worst band names seen/heard so far this tour

Gnome Sins
Bogus Jail
You fuck my wife and I like that
The ass guys
Eat Me Clown
Black Haircut
I have no mouth and I must scream
Three In One Gentleman Suit
The Samuel Jackson Five

I gotta take a dump you chump

Berlin and Prauge were great. The shows were totally out of control, who knew? Awesome dudes, very pretty ladies, etc. Look at my shitty pictures.

shit from my life fuck you im drunk fruck

cold blooded old times

The drive from Dundingen Switzerland to Rome Italy really took me back to the good ol’ days of touring in the US, but now with a more European backdrop. I won’t bore you with every detail, but it did involve another trip to the Russian embassy, a snow-made dead end in the Swiss alps that put us back 40 miles, a 3 and a half hour traffic jam with some of the most chaotic automobile clusterfucks I have ever seen with nary a traffic cop in sight followed by an additional 3 hours of blasting through skinny Italian mountain highway with maniac drivers all around us while Charlie and Martin take turns arguing with the promoter of the club in Rome about whether or not we will even be able to play once we get there (we weren’t). 15 fucking hours in the van so we could stay in this prison cell of a hotel room. We did drive past the coliseum in the morning. Big whoop.
The next day we drove to Pescara to play there and hang out with our euro bookers who turned out to be awesome dudes. They treated us very well and the show was a blast. Needless to say we got shitbombed.

Black Metal News!

Gaahl of the Norweigen black metal band Gorgoroth known for his ligit living quarters waaaay out in a Norweigen forest, his taste for torturing music journalists that ask him the wrong questions and generally being like this;

...(drum roll)...CAME OUT OF THE CLOSET!! Which I suppose is the most satanic sexual orientation if you think about it. His Boyfriend is some designer guy. I'm interested to see how the face painters are going to take this one.

In other news...
Varg Vikernes-(a.k.a. Count Grishnackh) — the former BURZUM singer who served a Norwegian prison term for the August 1993 murder of MAYHEM guitarist Oystein Aarseth (a.k.a. Euronymous) and setting fire to three churches was released from prison today for good behavior I'm guessing.

Varg is reportedly looking forward to living a "normal life".
So note to selves:::: If you really want to kill somebody and burn down a few churches and still release records from prison and be out in less than 15 years, Norway is for you.

Freiberg

Did I spell that right? Anyway, I need to hurry up and type this before the pot cookie kicks in. Our new friend Cristov took us around Frieberg on our day off. They have the oldest McDonalds in the world, did you know that? Built in 1649 it was. I forgot my camera on our walking tour I would have shown you. Instead you will have to see pictures inside Cristovs insane penthouse apartment that was a brothel in the 70's. Rad patio surrounded by bulletproof glass. No shit. Oh boy, gotta go...

french hair

french hair

Reoccurring topics of conversation

1.Wolves in the throne room
Olympia based eco-black metal band made famous for being a black metal band that doesn't dress like total clowns. Our driver Martin recently did a tour with them and enjoys relating a story about their tour regularly.

2. Todd P.
Portland cum New York music promoter. People seem to have stories about him.


3.31knots
Portland post-rock group I used to play drums in that I used to play drums in back when they were not popular in Europe. I’m riding on the tails of a coat that used to be mine but I haven’t worn for about 5 years (was that analogy too much of a stretch?).


4.Bread
People are constantly eating it, and apparently it’s impossible to have a meal in Europe without at least 12ft of baguette exploding out of a paper bag for you to have with your rice and pasta bomb. I will say that the food has been really delicious despite the glycemic index.

5.”The water is pregnant”
When it’s time to motivate to the next city and Martin fires up the GPS in the van, the lady’s voice says something in German that sounds like she is declaring “the water is pregnant”. We thought we were real clever with this observation, Martin rolled his eyes because apparently every American band he tours with makes the “the water is pregnant” joke.

Russian madness part one

We were about one pubic hair away from canceling the Russian leg of the tour this morning.
The Russian booker, who we are coming to find out is not the most experienced with booking bands from the United States, somehow managed to convince this girl that works at the Brussels Russian embassy to get up at 6am today to drive from Koeln Germany all the way to Brussels on her DAY OFF to open up the Embassy with 2 of her very unhappy co-workers who were also supposed to have the day off, so they could process 2 visas for a couple of idiots in a rock band (us) because this is something we apparently couldn’t take care of while we were still in the US. So after entering the Russian embassy that we watched several dejected people not get into while we were waiting in the car, the very stressed out friend of the Russian booker is running back and fourth from behind the glass that separates the office with the unhappy co-workers from us who are trying our best to fill out a lengthy questionnaire regarding our plans for their country, to the back office. Meanwhile we are informed that our “express processing” or whatever, of the visas is going to cost us 250 euro each. This prompts a phone call from our tour manager Martin on the stressed out friends cell phone to the Russian booker who is in Croatia at the moment who also mentions that our return flight isn’t booked yet, for some reason, besides the fact that he never mentioned the visa fee. The embassy girl starts stressing to Martin that he needs to get off this very expensive phone call before he can get the information that he needs seen as the Russian booker would not respond to Martins emails and that we need to make a decision RIGHT NOW about what we are going to do because she drove all the way from Koeln and her co-workers are pissed and meanwhile I’m trying to fill out information about a bartending job I had two summers ago and whether or not I had extensive experience with explosives or firearms (I haven’t) and I dropped my pen cap on the ground and I’m dizzy and I need water and a good poop. I’ve got a xanax in the car with my name on it (a real bad new security blanket I’m going to need to leave behind at the airport) but we need to tell them right now what we are going to do. I can’t remember what we decided but I’m pretty sure there is a new visa in my passport. Let the blood draining begin.

brussels

We played in Brussels last night. The people at the venue were very nice, had a beverage selection that included some real good red wine (chilled, I’m seeing this a lot) white wine, strong ass belgian beer (that I acted as if I was really enjoying and then poured down the toilet), their version of cheap beer, and rum. It seemed to me like a hodge-podge but I’m going to assume that this was deliberate.
It snowed. Apparently it’s unusual for Brussels but this didn’t surprise us seen as we “brought the weather with us” and it’s been snowing an annoying amount in Portland lately. We were drunk enough to throw snowballs at statues and I made pretty good contact with a box truck. We caught last call at this place that literally had 400 beers, which would usually overwhelm and bore me at the same time, but the 3 beers I tried there were actually fucking incredible.
The face kissing greeting thing is going to take some getting used to. It seemed very natural to me when my new French girlfriend Fanny gave me birthday kisses, but when the frizzy red haired giant in suspenders from the other band leaned in for a good bye smootch I tensed up so much he LOL’d at me. This is an ongoing cultural crash course, but I’m trying to absorb as much as I can. It’s easy to learn from people who seem to actually give a shit about something.

Birthdays.

Scene from my 28th at a bar called Grandmothers in Portland. I was confused...



Me and Kars taking it to the MAXIMUM amidst my "turning 30" crisis



Charlie and I in a burrito shop in Salt Lake City for me to turn 31 in a dry Mormon city
>
32. In an attic in an apartment in Amsterdam where we slept. Not anything like Ann Franks house

Confusing pictures from my life Pt.8 : German Edition

So far so good, once we got past the initial 23 hour travel time. That was pure fucking hell. I will pay the extra $75 in a heartbeat not to have a third flight to get to Europe.
Koeln or "Cologne" or whatever was rad. The people at the "King George" were super nice, gave us tons of booze, put us up in the apartment upstairs, etc. Very comfortable and easy. The show was real good too. People are incredibly respectful and seem to just generally pay more attention. Good start. Sorry my pictures suck...

Confusing pictures from my life pt.7

Last United States edition for the next month and a half. Like I said, bear with me. It will get more interesting...