Friday, February 6, 2009

It's fucking cold in Florida

In the past I've had no trouble finding time to hang out with a computer on tour, but so far I've had scarcely a minute to spend internetting - hence the lack of blog updates. Sadly, I don't have a ton of time right now either. I'm in Orlando, a city I normally associate with warmth, sun, sunglasses, flip flops, and hardcore kids that wear Nikes. Unfortunately it is below freezing right now, my sunglasses and flip flops are pouting in my backpack, and the show that happened tonight was with a small handful of lame crust punks that were extremely reluctant to donate any money to the touring bands. We were doing really well in the beginning of tour (financially), but we've been losing money in the last 3 or 4 days. And on top of lame, poorly promoted shows, someone stole a bag containing over a thousand dollars worth of cables and pedals from us outside of a show in Hickory, NC. Unfortunately for that person we will be driving through the same area on the way back up north, and if we are able to identify the culprit he or she will most likely be severely beaten. Other than nearing the brink of financial ruin (and let's face it, I'm never THAT far off), tour has been awesome. Swallowed Up is awesome, our road crew (now also known by the name of our gang, Ruff Elementz) is awesome, and not having to go to work is really awesome. I still spend a reasonable amount of time stressing out about the amount of money I owe to Visa compared to the amount of money I can potentially make in the next 6 months without getting a regular job (which, since I have so far struck out in several attempts to identify irregular sources of income, is approximately none), but it's hard to be actively stressed about anything when one spends the bulk of one's day in a van full of one's friends, reading, listening to music, napping, and congratulating each other on how cool, handsome, and straightedge they are. Some highlights so far include the second show in Haverhill, MA, where I ran into some old scene-acquaintances; New Brunswick, where kids were fun, got way into Swallowed Up, and hung out at the merch table talking about how much they liked our zine distro and hand-assembled records; Richmond where the show sucked but Lee's roommate Paul baked us bread; Asheville where we hung out with ian; Savannah where we skated a backyard skate park, and Waldo, FL where we slept at Fiz' farm last night. Hopefully I will be inspired to write about tour so far in more depth at some point in the near future, but I have a lousy record with promising more detailed entries, so I'll keep ya'lls expectations low this time around.