I-5 South, South of Eugene, Oregon
Eugene, OR is even more beautiful when you don’t have to play there on a Sunday night
This is one of the most beautiful areas of the country – dark green grass covered hills and fir tree covered mountains. We are about 2 hours north of Grants Pass which I remember to be near a hell-ride over a snowy mountain pass, and I don’t ever remember driving it during daylight hours. That’s ok; I feel like we’ve really accomplished something when we make it over the pass alive. Each time we’ve played here, there were about 5 people in the audience. I’m glad to give it up for a while, although we don’t mind playing to 5 people, the bartenders don’t enjoy serving to 5 people.
My underwear and the Border Patrol Guard
We made it over the border pretty easily. The guards all had a pretty good sense of humor; except for the one who rummaged through our personal belongings while we sat helpless on the bench behind the DOTTED LINE, watching him. I wonder how many of my dirty bras and underpants he saw and touched. How embarrassing. Next time we go over a border, I want to just fill the van with sacks of odd things; imagine how it would confuse a border patrol to find a sack full of gravel, or marbles, or about 1000 small plastic cups or straws or something. Rick doesn’t like this idea, so I’ll have to try it on my own sometime.
There were a lot of people at the Vancouver show
Just another affirmation of the Poster Children theory of 1) Tour, 2) Tour again, 3) Tour more, 4) Tour even more, and then 5) Tour and get to play in front of people. I think this is at least the 5th time we’ve ever played in Vancouver, but it’s the 1st time there was more than 50 people there. It felt like an incredible achievement, to have worked for an audience and finally found one, something we did in Chicago so long ago. We played one of our best shows- the last couple days have felt pretty weird. Tsunami was fantastic, and we got to talk to them a little bit more – they are great people, and run a great record label, (Simple Machines) and did I mention that they can sing?
MOTEL ROOM NIGHT
This is a really boring tour report because it’s our day off. Tonight we’re going to get a nice motel room (Motel 6) and do what Poster Children do best on their night off- watch TV and eat snack salads – that’s when you buy various bags of pretzels, potato chips, and chocolate and carbonated beverages and eat them. We don’t like to have nights off- it’s a waste of time and money, but sometimes you just have to have a rest. Anyway, it’s hard to get shows in adjacent states each night.
Topics of Van Conversation and Arguments for the day:
–How can you tell if the Canadian cokes have “actual” sugar in them as opposed to the corn syrup that most US Coke bottlers use?
–Where is the ecliptic (line of planets) right now in the night sky?/Is that big blue star Vega?
–Did Rose really hallucinate a 24-hour Taco Bell sign last night on the way back from Vancouver at 4am, and was it really worth driving around for that extra half hour to look for it?
–Why did the band Zumpano have to borrow our equipment in their home town?
–Were those sheep we just passed sheared, or were they goats?
See how exciting it is to be in a rock band?