i want a mint julip and some derby pie

so, we're in louisville, home of the slugger.

last night we played with black cross, which was awesome, and the paulson boys finally got to meet the initial people, the guys who run their label. andy initial was going to take them out to dinner after the show, so we headed for a burrito place. then i got a call, the paulson boys were going to meet up with us, because we were in the middle of a three tornado convergance, and no place was open but la bamba, where we were.

then we went to ryan and evan pattersons' place, who play in black cross and breather resist. they're place is so beautiful. it's 3 stories, all new, 5 people, and they pay 1200 beans per month. how incredible is that? i payed 4000 for 10 people in new brunswick. holy crap.

everyone here is really nice, and since we're not playing shows for the next few days, i think we're all gearing up for some camping or something. everyone in the bands seems to be in good spirits, which is always amazing. being on the road for this long is obviously equally amazing and hard. the hard parts have been kept to a minimum, so that's cool.

oh yea, yesterday while getting gas, so teenaged kid asked greg if we had played the leonyrd skynard (sp?) concert the previous night. hmm...maybe we need to work on our image, if that's what we're portraying to middle america.

thanks again to ryan and everyone in kentucky for helping us out and being so amazing.
thanks to you for visiting. please wipe your feet at the door, and make sure you take a cookie on your way out.

lots of love,
the python

i am alive in fact

sorry i don't write in this ever. its just that i'm very lazy and the rest of my band isn't so they beat me to all the good stories. lets see... i drove a lot. i drove some more. i slept. ate some food. i'm in a band. we're called out smarting simon. he we're playing a show tonight in nasvhille at this place called the muse, you should come check us out if you're not doing anything.
there is something hilarious about someone being nicknamed the beekeeper. i have a lot of nicknames but none of them are quite that good.
booyah.

Eff Trailers..

nashville

Yes. I think PJ summed things up nicely. I must say it was very cool that ryan came out to the show. He's an awesome guy and it was nice to see him again. We've had our second vehicle problem of this tour, and I must say, I could really do without anymore problems henceforth. Nonetheless, we popped a new tire on our trailer and made it to Nashville no problem. The place is cool, but in sort of a weird area. There are plenty of strip clubs and other "adult" establishments. There is also some good skating near the place, and I was "tearing it up" the best I could. Tommorow is a show in Louisville with Black Cross and we are all pretty excited about that. I also plan on getting some free gear when Paulson visits Initial, but we'll see. Oh, and I also picked up a gallon of sweet tea today since it will be my last chance to enjoy some before we head up north.

whoa

we drove all night.
we got a hotel room, much to our dismay.
we had a bit of a tiff (sp?)
we played johnston city, tn.
vegan ryan came out.
some guy called greg and me gay and said we liked cock.
he didn't have a shirt on.
or underwear.
he sang a song, while drunk and tattooed.
it went something like this:
"well i'm an american man
with a gun in my hand
and i'm gonna get saddam and bin laden too.
i'll go to iraq from affanisan (that was how it came out)
and if you get in my way
i'll kill you...damn, i fucked up...i'm drunk, i wrote the song while on methanphetamines...but i'll kill you too."
i think that's about how it went.
logan audio taped it.
paulson knocked over the keyboard and broke it while playing.
they took off soooo many brown pants.
i think jesse might get mad.
logan played the sound byte of the dude in NOLA reading porn.
very creepy.
hung out in the hotel room.
kickboxed a watermelon.
logan wore it as a helmet.
alex punched him with it.
in the morning a girl had a seizure.
we drove towards nashville.
another trailer tire blew up.
after lots of trouble we got a new one.
now we're at the muse in nashville.
over and out.
peach

last night part two

so...
we went to new orleans. do stories that start this way ever end well? just kidding. to be honest, going to NOLA is one of those things that i think almost everyone wants to experience in their lives, and in a way, i'm glad i did and now i can cross that off the list. don't get me wrong, i had a good time hanging out with my buddies and seeing something i've never seen through my own eyes, but i kind of see that place kind of like las vegas. it's a heaven for some people and a hell for others. it was pretty much exactly what i expected, but it's crazy to be in the middle of a place where drinking and nudity are allowed on the streets, basically a den of debauchery. oh well, i guess that's awesome for some people.

the folks we hung out with were very nice, though some of their stories were a bit on the scary side. that's what you get for hanging out with strangers i guess.

mike smeen and i stayed up until sunup discussing/arguing about innovation and invention in music, a conversation that i'm sure annoyed everyone but us. well, maybe us a little.

greg is a great kid, and sometimes he needs to be reminded that i love him and am an ass. sorry dude, i love you.

so, an overview of things i saw:
naked people, big and small
vomiting
many almost fights
lots of drunken dirty old men
two rock bands (they were on tour also, big collapse was one of them, but i forgot the name of the other. super nice guys)
lots of strip clubs next to pizza places
bros
cops

i think that's about it. anyway, i hope you realize it was ridiculous to be part of.

tonight we're playing in mississippi. it's a cool coffee shop where they bought us pizza. that's cool.

as for other fun things we've done on tour, greg has mentioned some of them. here is an example of some of logan's handiwork with peal away letters on a closed down business.

also, how sweet is no fear? i know you wouldn't mess with this bunch.

i wish i had a funnier way of describing this picture, but come on, i think it speaks for itself. oh yea, and logan's "elf defense" picture never made it up, but if we get a chance we post that too. hope you like it. enjoy.
love,
patricio

last nigh part one

right now we are in the parking lot of the furnace, the diy style club that we played 30 minutes outside of baton rouge. the show went really well, but right before we were supposed to go on, a bunch of cops showed up. after making sure it was cool that we play, we played what ended up being a short set, only 4 songs. sorry to those kids who actually came out, but thank you so much for coming out and singing along.

so, as we were packing up, we found out that all of the permits and stuff weren't cool with the place, which is why it got shut down. i think we were given 30 minutes to get out of the club, so we packed up and got ready to go. as we were leaving, kelly forgot his backpack, so he ran inside to grab it. i was sitting in the paulson van waiting in the exit. so, just as we were about to leave, two pickup trucks and a cop car pulled up, all with sheriffs inside. so, we hung out for a few minutes, and then maguire told us we should get out of the parking lot, but the OS van had to stay and hang out. now we're hanging out in the paulson van across the street at a gas station while the rest of the OS boys are chilling out. the cops apparently cuffed one dude at the show because they found a large amount of drugs in his car. so, after the boys bro'd down with the cops we are all ready to go. maguire rolled up just now and screamed, "i shot a pig in the face, yea!" so, that is how our night went.

we're on our way to NOLA now, because we apparently want to enter in some debauchery. i hope all of you are well. peace in the middle east.
pajamas.

central time

hey all. so for the sake of time and such, i'm not going to read the blogs from the other guys. so, please forgive me if i repeat things a little. we have all finally gotten some rest after our overnight drive from tampa to baton rouge. maguire and i took the "graveyard shit" and drove til abouit 7 am or so. we had to make about 4 stops trying to find a place to get a cup of coffee. i guess florida has some strange rule that makes the convenience stores at the gas stations close at night, whatever. we also enjoyed a bag of bacon cheddar fries. sounds gross, i know. yesterday we rolled into town around noon or so and we weren't in the best moods. both paulson and we got our oil changed and the os guys plus jeff dined at an all you can eat chinese buffet. it wasn't very good, but it was a lot of food. we were all pretty tired when we got to the venue, and a few of us (myself included) took naps on benches across the street. it was very hobo of us, but it's just too hot to sleep in the van.

well, the rest of the tour is looking good. we have another show here in baton rouge today, so we are all just taking it easy. also, we are all looking forward to the recently confirmed (reconfirmed) angry penguin show. that should be a blast. take care all.

yut yut

well...
greg put it pretty well. kelly bummed it up, as did i for a short while. we ate really greasy chinese buffet for dinner. i slept many hours in the van. oh yea, the long ass overnight drive s'd the d. it sure did. anyway, kate really hooked it up with pizza and cool floor space. the paulson guys got up to the room first and when we got there everyone dove into the pizza, which then turned out to be one veggie and one pepperoni, which sort of sucked for me, because there was no more veggie; however, my good buddies in both bands that eat meat all gave me their half/not eaten pieces and ate the meatza slices. nice guys. i knew i loved them. oh yea, and jeff fed greg greasy meats by hand. that was hot.

as for the show at the kids, that was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. it basically felt like a new brunswick basement show, but a billion miles away. that's an incredible feeling. also, greg from the kids is an amazing guy who puts just about everything he has into making a cool places for kids and shows. he's the best.

today we're playing in baton rouge again, then off to clinton, mississippi. we've never played there, so i'm excited. i guess that's about it. thanks again everyone.
oh, wait...if you're not doing anything on either june 6 or june 11, please come out to our shows in philly or at la cuna respectively. thank you!

love,
the peej

Finally Rested!!

It's about time... I finally got a bit of sleep, and I couldn't be happier.

We played the Kids Skateshop in Tampa two nights ago which was incredible. I still can't get over the feeling of having kids over a thousand miles away singing along to lyrics I've written. It's absolutely bizarre, and quite a bit absurd, but possibly one of the most amazing feelings. Thank you guys!

Anyway, after the kids show, we had to head straight to Louisiana... 12 hours, straight through the night, definitely took it's toll on all of us. We showed up to the show and Kelly passed out like a hobo on a bench across the street, PJ crashed in the van for many hours, Maguire managed to hide away somewhere, and I just decided to start drinking... Probably not the best move considering I was already dillusional from lack of sleep. But anyway, Kate, the girl who set up the show for us, brought us back to her place and hooked it up with food and an airconditioned place to crash. Absolutely amazing!

Alright, so I'm not really writing anything interesting anymore, so I'm gonna get out of here. There should be some cool photos coming soon though. Let's just say "sex for kids", thanks to Logan, and "no fear"... You'll understand all of this very soon..

Oh and one last thing. It appears the Angry Penguin show on the 11th is back on in New York. I'll post all the info when I get it.. But I sure as hell hope to see all those familiar faces I love so much.

thank's y'all

that's how they say it down here in the south...i think.

anyway, thank you all very much for being interested enough in our little band to read up on us and leave comments. i like comments, they give me something to read and make me smile.

as for my lovely locks, i'm not sure if you just meant my hair or dreads...well, my hair will come back eventually, but for now its shaved head with marble, then i'll cut that out so i just have a shaved brown skull...then i'll probably just grow it back. hope that works for you all.

so last night after i posted, the girl who got us the hotel room and most of paulson left for her house. she probably should not have been driving, but they got home apparently some inappropriate comments were made by her and then she made them watch shrek to primus' 'punch bowl,' or at least thats how i think it worked out. interesting, semi-sorry i missed it.

today we're playing at the kid's skateshop in tampa, fl, and then we're going to leave right afterwards for baton rouge, la, which is something like a 12 hour drive. sucks, but we're playing there tomorrow, and we'd like to get the drive, or at least most of it, out of the way. after two days in good ole louisiana, we take the 10 hour trek to johnson city, tn, but luckily after that most of the drives are reasonable. so far i've finished 3 novels on this tour, and i'm working through number 4 and a book on anxiety. all very interesting stuff.

yesterday i passed the trophy for 'most rightous dude os/paulson tour '04' over to greg for dropping a duece in the gulf of mexico, now called the gulf of dumpsico, aptly titled by brian kelly.

i'm sure none of this is all that interesting, so here is where i will call it quits. i miss some of you very much, and if i don't know you, i'm sorry, but i don't miss you. but, i still love you. thanks for everything.
pedro

team abs drum off 2k4. thats really all i have to say right now. oh yeah, tour is fun. and it took me a week to figure out how to log on to this thing. stupid internet.

hotels weird me out...

i'm not sure if it is because i am frugal (that's the polite way of saying it), but i have a small problem with getting a hotel room on tour unless there is fear of death; however, tonight we are in tampa florida, and mike's (from paulson) cousin decided to get us a hotel room. i'm not sure why, but it is amazing of her, and we are all getting showers and sleep on floors/beds, rather than vans, which is incredible. thank you jaime and mike.

we drove 10 hours overnight last night to get from georgia to ft. myers florida. the show in georgia kind of sucked, because they made us and paulson play as the last two bands. what's up with that? why do people make touring bands that nobody knows play last? thats just seems beat. it also seems like they lied to us a bit about cash, which sort of sucks because gas is really expensive. regardless, greg and i drove from about 12.30 to 7 am, alternating between absolute elation and semi-argumentation. i love that kid to death, but we also can argue. anyway, so we tried to sleep for a while, but not well after that, and eventually i ended up meeting the rest of the guys at the beach (which was incredible--white sand, warm water) and then we went to guitar center for the jeff (paulson)/maguire drum-off. it was amazing, they actually drew a crowd. there was also the standerd GC tools playing nu-metal.

tonight went really well, there was this great show at a record shop, and even though there weren't a ton of kids, the one's who watched really cared. that to me is the most amazing feeling in the world.

i love punk rock. i love my boys. i love paulson. i love you all. i don't love trying to sleep in hot vans. fuck it, i do love it, because it means i'm living.

i love you all. thanks for everything.
pj

georgialina

So, I would like to recapitulate some highligts of days past. We played with Alli with an I in NC, and then Guff in GA and it was great hanging out with those guys again. Other fun things about days past: hanging out with Ed in Myrtle Beach, wearing European swimwear to the beach and deeming it a social experiment, sweet tea, getting chased by poop, and finally hitting a subway. Also, people in Myrtle Beach really like 3 doors down, so much so, that they feel the need to kareoke to it. To some people, chorused acousitc guitar is still the bees knees. How painfully diverse we are sometimes. If you are going to invest in a shirt, you might want to consider getting one with sleeves, they work well, really. Nonetheless, I fell asleep on a hotel balcony by the ocean, and it was awesome. Also, Paulson is far superior to us in the electronics and hats department. We will have to catch up.

hawks rule!!!

hey all,
so we're here in summerville, sc and it is day something on tour with paulson. these guys are awesome, and getting the chance to watch them every night has been incredible. after some good shows and some bad shows, we're loving each and every day that we wake up, because we're not sure what it will bring. the last few shows have been a bit rough, because me being a bit of an idiot, told logan (singer of paulson) to jump from one roof to another one night, and he made it, so i thought i could. soooo....i tried and missed, and caught myself with my left hand and throat. when i woke up i could barely talk, couldn't sing at all, and could barely move my left hand. therefore, it's made playing the last few shows a bit rough.

anyway, in between me being stupid, we've found time to do funny things with my hair. first, way before we left, i cut my hair into a tony hawk/rosie o'donnel cut, and left it so we could have fun on tour. so, we then died it blonde at my aunt's house outside of DC, and alex (paulson) left a few brown spots by mistake...so then we cut it into a sweet hawk, which you'll find a wonderful picture of below. when we finally got it to stand up, it was awesome. so, next i'll probably shave it off and look like a marble rye.

so, as for touring, showers and floors have been few and far between, but the van and random hijacked hotel rooms provide for a good time. i've been sweating a lot, and probably don't smell so good, but everyone is just going to have to deal with that. wow, i just realized i have absolutely nothing cool to say. so, let me think...guff was awesome in georgia last night, and it was great seeing them again. when we played with alli with an i, we somehow convinced some kid to come let us hang at his house, and then i jump kicked logan in the chest. we have it on video. it's pretty boss. ok, i'll stop wasting your time. thanks for hanging out. hope all is well. send some emails and say hi!
pj/pj@outsmartingsimon.com

day two...

so it's been a while since we've been near civilization, hence the lack of updates on this journal thing... the reason being a broken van in the middle of a walmart parking lot in dover deleware... i figured i'd share a picture with you guys so you could all see the wonder that was the second day of our month long tour... haha.. talk about starting things on a good note.. sorry to all you kids in norfolk virginia.. we tried to get there... we really tried...

north carolina

yoder,
so we're in the northern of the two carolinas with the duechebags we call paulson. they're fun guys but that guy mike is a real tool. for serious. just kidding, they're a blast. we also saw this kid at the olive garden (we go to chain resturants whenever our van breaks down, which it did, in delaware...sorry to anyone who came to see us in norfolk, va, we were stranded), anyway, so we saw this kid with plugs and dyed black hair, so when we had no place to stay, i called the olive garden and asked to speak to said kid and then asked him if he knew a place we could stay. he did! he said we could stay at his place. so, that is what we did, after hanging out in the pep boys parking lot for many many hours. cut to later that night, and i say, "hey, you should come on tour," so he said "ok," and it was on. the next morning we left 5 strong for virginia, and showed up to the next show with a new merch guy. meet dan. he's 22, likes the nightmare before christmas, and smokes cigarettes. today we are playing with our buddies 'alli with an i,' at the soap box in wilmington, nc. then a day off, then myrtle beach. life, as always, is both incredible, and insane. every day brings a new smile and a new brow furrow. lets just hope for more of the former and less of the latter. thanks for everything!
pj

It is finally working for me

After a few failed attempts, I am now officially part of the blog. yeah.

Ready to go...

I can't even begin to express how ready I am to get out on the road again. I'm sitting here behind a desk, in my little cubicle-like section of an office, working the nine to five.. This is where I've been for the past three months, and quite honestly I'm sick and tired of always being at someones beck and call.

I'm itching for the moment the four of us step into the van, and all the worldly burdens that have come to rest on our shoulders during the past three months disappear. There really is no way to describe the feeling of escaping all the garbage with my three best friends..

For now I should get back to the grind. It seems I have someone else's business to accomplish... but not for long.

i haven't even left for tour yet, and have fucked things up

so...
i made this post once and it got erased, so here's a recap...

tonight i rediscovered why leaving for tour is one of the most amazing and most excruciating events in my life.

in a few days i will leave with information i almost wish i didn't have, and with a fear that i will return to an empty waste land of jersey life.

regardless, i want to thank each and every person who has made this band, and who has made my life amazing. i'm sorry if i sometimes seem mean at shows, please just take it as me dealing with an over active emotional core. regardless, thank you for making everything better, for being part of my life, for letting me be part of yours, and for overriding the fear of leaving, with the excitement of coming. thanks for everything.

i know how to use the internet

thats right. i got this shit down.