Back Home

Well, that's it. The Outsmarting Simon/Paulson Tour '04 is officially over. I can say that I'm tired and smelly, certainly sad that things had to come to an end, but also glad to be home. I'm looking forward to sleeping in a bed, sleeping in a room without someone else keeping me awake with constant snoring, NOT choking on smoke all the time, wearing clean clothes, and not having to brave the filth of public restrooms. Basically, after a month on the road, I'll certainly enjoy the comforts of being home.

Before I forget, I guess I should mention that we still have our show at Hamilton St. this friday. Unfortunately Paulson isn't playing, but we'd love to see some familiar faces...and show you our (perhaps) now unfamiliar ones.

Last night ended with a good show in Taunton, MA and then a group outing to Friendly's for food and ice cream. It was an awesome way to end tour, and we had been wanting ice cream the whole time, so it had to be then or not at all. Paulson "punk'd" us pretty well, and we spent a good while at the gas station trying our best to remove the pudding and jelly from the van. It was gross but, we got them back in so many good ways. Eventually, Greg, Ross and I landed at Greg's house at about 4 am. We wrestled the trailer into his driveway, and tried our best to collect our belongings from the van. Then, it was one final night sleeping in my sleeping bag, and now finally getting home.

All in all it was a great tour. We met so many awesome people, experienced new places, and got to tour with a very talented band, and great people. Thanks so much to all the the people that made the shows possible, gave us floors to sleep on, fed us, and watched us at the shows. We could never do this without all your help. Thank you.

sloppy thirds

ok, so now it's my turn i suppose.

anyway, i'm having trouble recalling everying, so i'll dry and go down it.

akron, oh
stayed with ryan (kid we met at borders) and ashley. thank you guys so much, you are incredible people for taking us in, feeding us and sharing smiles.

columbus, oh
emily, jenna, nate and everyone we met from the battle of gettysburg (sp?) were incredible people who took us and the amazing guys from marathon in and fed us round pizza cut into squares, and let marathon drink blatz. i shaved my head and cut my gross facial hair into martin lawrence facial hair. kelly cut a mustache.

johnstown, pa
this place flooded a while ago. we played a fun show, and the chandelier (sp?) swing was awesome as well. those guys are fun to watch. then i went on an actual rope swing. then there was a campfire, and somehow jonah from johnstown decided to seal his fate in our story history by drinking a liter of urine. wow. incredible. disgusting. holy crap. well, he got his wish, the story will be told. somehow i left with more shoes than i came with.

philly, pa
played dr. watson's pub with all ska bands and a ton of our friends came out. it was so incredible to see everyone, and i felt so good and home. thank you so much to amelia for coming out and filling my belly with lots of food and pabst. all of you, seriously, thank you so much for everything. you are all the reasons i want to come home from tour. then, i got yelled at by the promoter. apparently since we're from new brunswick, we're not on tour. i guess you're not allowed to play close to where you once lived in the middle of tour. also, apparently he has never been treated so rudely or had anyone be as big of a dick to him as me. i'm rather confused, and if i was being rude, i didn't mean it, but when i tried to talk about it and explain/apologize, i got yelled at more. that's all i can do. i'm sorry that the show was soured by people not liking the way i deal with myself and others.

after the show we got some food and went to maguire's sister's place. thanks mary ellen, that was fun. then we went out and met up with jaime and leann/leigh ann (not sure which)--the myrtle beach girls. then carla and amanda came out too. i was glad they got to meet some of our home friends and everyone got to hang out. then home friends left for jersey and the rest of us went for more drinks at a place far to swanky for this guy.

thank you amelia for everything.
thank you everyone from jersey. i love you all so much.
thank you jaime, carla, leann and amanda, you guys were a ton of fun and way more generous than anyone could ever ask.
thank you michael with an i for coming to hang out with us in georgia. i forgot to write this, but i really mean it man, you're incredible and it was amazing seeing you guys.
thank you ryan and ashley for helping us out so much.
and if i don't know your name, come up and say hi, so i can thank you too.

i love you all.
the p.

Day 26?

It seems like we've been on tour forever. I think this is day 25 or day 26... Something like that.. Anyway, a few things have happened since we last updated this thing.

First off we played in Johnstown PA, which was a great show.. Much to my suprise, I showed up only to find a band called the Vicars playing.. The interesting thing here is that Scott Benson, also of Ex-Benny's Joyride fame, happens to be in that band.. Now if you don't know who Benny's Joyride was, consider yourself lucky... Haha, basically we are talking about my highschool ska band (huh, huh, pick it up)... I hadn't seen Scott in what must have been years, and quite honestly it was a real pleasure both seeing him and playing with his band. I must say it definitely brought me some fond memories while miles away from home... After the show, some complete absurdity ensued, which I'm not going to bother writing about, because I trust PJ or one of the other guys will fill you in on all the gory details...

After Johnstown we made our way down to Philly where tons of friends from home came out. I can't thank you guys enough. I've missed all of you so much, and getting the opportunity to see you really made me so incredibly happy. We also met up with our Philly friends that we met while down in Myrtle beach... As always, they showed us more than a good time, kept us up till sunrise, and got us nice and drunk. You guys are amazing!

So yeh, finally after Philly we headed up to Wilkes-Barre, and played a pretty cool show at this place called the zoo. Interestingly enough, the back stage "band area" was equiped with a wrestling ring and a punching bag, which entertained brian kelly for hours.

Alright I've rambled long enough and hopefully recapped a bit of the past few days, so I'm gonna get out of here...

yikes

so i finally beat everyone to this shit. awesome.
okay here's my condensed version of the last two days. got to philly. loaded up a lot of stairs. lots of friends showed up. had some fun. met some rad kids. met some not so rad kids. got fed by my sister. fell asleep while everyone else went out to party. went out and found everybody. left. went out again and found everybody. left. went to bed. walked 30 blocks to find everybody again. slept all the way to the next show. loaded up even more stairs. rocked. slept all the way to our next destination.
which is my house which is really weird but it was on the way so we figured we'd come eat and shower for free.
so now i'm being heckled by my cat as has been the case for the last six months of my life but little does she know i'm leaving for another week very very soon.
i'm quite sure i left out a lot of details so i'll leave that to everyone else.

what i have in my heart i will take to my graaaaaaave!!!

remind me next time i start a band to not be the only dude that wants to listen to hatebreed. or maybe just remind me to stop listening to hatebreed.
i don't really have much else to say, sorry.
although i must admit i am excited to actually start playing again.
and i also want to go back to sleep.
and i also want to go back to the olive garden.

Ohio, then Back East

So, we're out here in Kent, Ohio and we'll be playing in Akron later today. Thanks to PJ's persistence, we found a place to stay and we are all well rested and clean. The weather has cooled off a bit, at least from the 90+ degrees it had been in FL, and we are all thankful for that.

We stayed with the Burton's aunt and uncle the other day, and got fed until we could eat no more. They were super nice, and took great care of us. Unfortunately, we all feel pretty terrible about what happened to Paulson. Then end result is they went home yesterday morning. They might be meeting back up with us later, but nothing is certain at this point. As much as we would all love to meet up with them later, it's more important that they take care of everything back home, and be there for each other. It's strange, because as much as we've been touring on our own before, it seems exceptionally odd now since Paulson had to leave under such terrible circumstance. In the meantime, I hope everything goes as well as it can for them, and we'll all try our hardest to keep things going for them the best we can. They will be missed.

On a lighter note, we all enjoyed a killer meal at the Olive Garden, thanks to Dan's 25% discount. We also watched a ridiculous Kung Fu movie at Ryan's last night. It was awesome.

soon we're just knocking on doors

hey all,
today we're in akron, oh. we drove here last night after we left paulson.

on that note, unfortunately paulson had a family situation that they had to deal, and so they will not be playing the next few shows with us. whenver they are ready, they will hop back on the tour, but until then, our hearts are with you guys.

so, outside of cincinnati, jesse and alex's aunt and uncle put us up for the night and made us an incredible dinner and bought us beer and wine. they are some of the sweetest people, and we really appreciated everything. then we split up with paulson yesterday, and drove for akron, hoping we could find a place to stay. we tried the olive garden, because we had success with dan there last time, and plus, he was able to get us a discount. that didn't work too well, so we headed for the borders after dinner, and after just about giving up, i asked some kid who looked kind of indie if he knew anyone who might be willing to help some kids out. after a few questions, he said we could stay with him. this is getting ridiculous. we've realize we've gone from asking people we know, to asking complete strangers who aren't even at shows. so, next is to just walk up to houses and ask point blank. hehe, we're jackasses. anyway, that's about it. thanks to ryan and zach for having us. oh yea, zach and his girlfriend have a really cute puppy named salvadore, and he has six toes on his left leg. it's so cute and gross at the same time.

ok, that's it. have a great day.
patricio

taylor hanson is my hero

So, we are on day 2 of our 3 days (in a row) off and things are going well. The show with Black Cross was an awesome time, and things went as well as they could have. Greg's amp wasn't working, but now, after a trip to home depot, some solder and a new switch, it should be back in action. I purchased a Black Cross skate deck for $15 which was a killer deal.

On that note, PJ, Jeff, and I hit up the Louisville Extreme Park last night and it was indeed gnarly. They had a full pipe, vert ramp and insane bowl and street course. I was busting out my standard frontside 50-50 and backside boardside and trying to hold things down the best I could. There were little kids tearing it up though. Also, my current deck is now on its way out, so it's a good thing I picked up the new deck the other day.

Louisville is really a pretty cool city, and we've had some fun walking about the downtown and just checking things out. They are big on horse statues which I assume is related to the whole KY derby thing. We also passed the Louisville Slugger Museum. Oh, and we also met the bass player from VAST yesterday. I'm betting one of the other dudes related the story in full, so I won't go into detail here. Nonetheless, the whole experience was quite ridiculous. To his credit, the dude was super nice and seemed to just enjoy talking to us. But, it's always bizarre talking to one of the big time guys. Point and case: they are on Carson Daly's label and the dude asked us if we had a tour bus. Ha. He also went on to explain how Hanson (yes, the mmmbop kids) had it rough and "took it in the ass" to get out of there major label deal. I never knew Hanson had so much cred.

Well, we are off to Ohio, I think. We need to clean ourselves, our clothes, and the van, so if all goes well, that will happen soon.

Out on the road little boys let their beards grow...

So it's been a little over two weeks on the road with the Paulson guys. Technically it hasn't been a long time, yet I feel like we've been out forever. I think the constant change of scenary and time zones can do that to you. Right now we are still in Louisville, hanging out in a public library. I can't complain though... Air conditioning and comfortable seats are I need these days. Plus I have a good spot to sit back and delve into the world of Dostoevsky.. He seems to be my tour buddy. This time, I'm reading "The Idiot", and as always I'm blown away..

So anyway, a few days ago at the Black Cross show, I got all my gear set up, and went to turn on my amp, only to find that the switch was destroyed and there was no way in hell my head was going to turn on. I'm happy to say after the purchase of a soldering iron, and some parts at the home depot, I'm back in action.. I knew that engineering degree would eventually do something for me..

Okay, I think I'm about done with my rambling.. Ewwww... except one more thing.. I've been sporting PJ's New Balances for the past month, including a good portion of time sockless in the sweaty van, and christ, I just got this horendous whif of what must be my shoes.. Haha.. I really pity all the people sitting around me... Alright, now that i've left you all with that pleasant image, I'm out...

1 out of 4

i'm sure in the next few moments you will be reading an entry from each of us, because we are in a library right now, and all have interweb access.

so, here are some highlights of the last day or so...

yesterday paulson went to eat with andy initial, since he didn't take them out the other night due to what turned out to be about 25 tornados. we watched yet another indiana jones movie that night, by the way, which ruled, obviously. yesterday while they were eating, we drove to indiana by mistake, then went to home depot so greg could fix his ever breaking head, due to bumping around in the trailer. we then ate at cici's, $3.99 all-you-can eat pizza, pasta, salad and dessert buffet. ridiculous, right? after climbing the wall behind target, we headed back to louisville and walked around. greg saw what he called an "awesome roof," so we found it, and it turned out to be a hard rock cafe and pedestrian area. there was a stage set up for what seemed to be some sort of out of doors rock and roll event.

while meandering around, this guy came up to me and asked if we were playing. now, at this point in tour, i'm wondering if we have signs on our backs or something, because everywhere we go, everyone knows we're in a band. what the hell? how do they know this? anyway, he talked to me for about 10 minutes or so, and then said he was kidding, and that he played bass for the band that was going to perform. they were called VAST, and i had never heard of them, and thought they were probably cheesy. i hope i didn't say anything like that to him though. so, he basically bragged to us for a half hour about getting lots of girls and hanging out with taylor hanson. we decided later that we should hang out and get into the "after party," so we called paulson to meet up with us so we could do so. but, then we got bored, so we went to get food and found free books, and then headed back to the patterson household so we could take advantage of their kindness once again.

after eating a bit of their food and hanging out, a bunch of us went with them to this go karting place, and everyone went wild. they had also told us of a sick skate park, so kelly, jeff (paulson) and i headed down to it. holy shit, this was the biggest park i had ever seen. they had a full pipe. a full pipe!! how crazy is that? anyway, it was after midnight, and there was still a ton of kids there, even awesome girls skating! jeff and i just messed around in the bowl, while kelly pulled a few tricks. i'll put up some pictures if i get a chance soon. damn, it ruled. anyway, then we went back and watched 'the rise and fall of gator.' needless to say, it was quite a skating night.

so, thats about it, today we got up and got some food and are now at the library. as you can see, we're not the most exciting people. tonight we're going to jesse and alex's (paulson) aunt's house in cinncinatti, ohio. supposedly they're very conservative, so i have to watch my mouth. oh well.

hope all is well. be good and stay safe
the pourpoise