Northern Tour, April 08

I realize I hadn't posted anything about our trip North. To the left is one of the about 100 or so veg restaurants in NYC...this is Imhhoteps in Brooklyn.

I must say that this tour was much better than our first tour in '06, largely due to the people we got to know better and see again this time around, and some of the folks we met. The folks at the Pasadena Pirate House were amazing, hosting a screening and BB, and we got to visit our good friends Airport Blvd and Dawn Dineen again and play a show with them in the infamous Elvii basement, complete with nice folks in attendance. Also got to see family in Connecticut & Toronto. It was a damned good time. Had help in NY with a screening from the wonderful Jasmin of Farm Sanctuary too.


Rob and I camped much of the trip, in a little tent, which was overall quite good. A couple of times we weren't really set up at an actual camp ground, but we managed to get away with it except the time we camped in front of the rangers station.

In the absence of proper vegan smore-making materials, I am happy to announce my new invention, I think, ricemellow smore pie. Complete with graham cracker crust, chocolate chips, and rice-mellow fluff. I also added some peanut butter for effect. As a bonus it's easy to roast...simply place on the grill and wait.



Here in no particular order, there are pictures of the following: my screening at Bluestockings, an awesome radical bookstore in Manhattan;














oops, our car post-towing in same town;














me with my BFF the vegan cupcake....this is the famous Babycakes - no sugar, animal juice, or wheat...and they are damn good!;















the front of Goodbye Blue Mondays in Brooklyn where we played - nice people and they even sent my camera back when we forgot it there!!;
















Rob in activism mode leafleting at a college (ain't he cute?);















a false alarm in Pittsburgh...when I bursted into the store after seeing the sign, I learned that the vegan cupcakes all sold out. I tried to mask my disappointment but the tears were a giveaway;















homemade vegan donuts! crazy, eh? Someone at the vegan pirate house brought them for the potluck. Kinda takes the bar up a notch for potluck offerings;















my little nephews and niece in Toronto with two cakes, the messy pinkish one I made to the left;















Some of my Greek family ... my aunt Eleni is 2nd from the left, 1st cousins dimitra & maria;














rob and his sister Jamie;















WUSB! What nice folks they were...we played at midnight. I was not quite feeling like loading our equipment up to the station, but once we did it was a lot of fun. They are based out of Stony Brook University in Long Island.

Seattle, Olympia, CD RELEASE!, Roanoke, Pittsburgh: Northern Tour '08 Part I

Lynn, Tom, Lily, & Noah in their Seattle yard.


Me with one of their chickens. Never held a chicken before this. They are kind of heavy, and very soft.















Crocodile Cafe, Rip.









Mighty-O (vegan) donut! Nice presentation, eh? Nana's best dinnerware.











The University Theater, where I screened the doc.




















Bill's Off Broadway, a restaurant my dad co-started in the 80's.










A place I lived for a few years in the 90's in Capitol Hill. My apartment was in the tower section. That's why I wanted to live there, for the tower. Very run down inside, very cheap.



















Um - it's very hard in Blogger to line up the picture labels with the pictures.


So I'm not going to try - but on this post, please find awesome pics from my cute nephew & Rob reading, cute nephew drumming, etc...Rob's brother and sister...

us playing on KAOS radio & at the Mix in Seattle...

our CD release with pics of Cantwell Gomez & Jordan & eberhardt.

Also, band-wise, find the Olympia act Captain Sickness & His Fabulous Maladies. In Roanoke - the awesome Illbotz rap/comedy duo, and Wading Girl, a Steve-Earlesque bite of Virginia & beyond.

I also took a pic of the Frick Fine Arts Center, where I screened the doc in Pittsburgh.

Also find me with my mom & Nana, more chickens (this time at the homestead of Rob's mom, brother, & sister), goats in Rainier, WA, complete with snow...

and what happens when I buy a pack of vegan cupcakes.

Spring Cleaning

What a boring freakin title. But this post relates to both. Today Rob and I participated in our neighborhood's (Cleveland-Holloway) cleanup. We found cool and gross things. I did end up throwing this little (Cinderella?) away.

This trashy picture here is part of Ellerby Creek. Not the best part. It's hard to tell from the picture, but countless bottles, plastic bags, and trash coat the surface. We're hoping to clean this up soon too.














As you might imagine, most of the trash we picked up today wasn't exactly healthy trash. We're talking Twinkie boxes, Wild Rose, Chips, Coke, candy bars. Kinda made me want to give up my junk food eating ways. I mean, there must be a connection between the litterer's diet and the litterer.

So I was very disturbed when I stumbled upon members of the vegetable family...mr. carrot, mr. celery, and baby cauliflower.














I can only be consoled by the nearness of Spring. Each year when the untrimmed bush in our front yard transforms from dead brown twig to this, it continues to amaze me. How do they all come back like that?












Then there are these flower bulb thingys that Rob planted last year. They came back too! So we must be ok, I mean, as people.

Pay Me to Eat Your Vegan Cake ... & Greensboro

One might think, from reading this blog, that Rob and I have a slight addiction to vegan baked and/or frozen goods. Nothing can be more removed from the truth. As most of you know, tours aren't exactly get-rich-quick schemes. And we've got bills to play, plants to water, etc. How to make ends meet and still get the show on the road?

Endorsements for vegan baked and/or frozen goods, of course! So we're not actually eating the items like the pineapple-basil sorbet you see Rob holding there in the waffle cone. But he is getting top $$$ from the Pineapple-Basil Sorbet Co., let me tell you. I think he even shined his sunglasses before this shot.

The last night of a tour is sort of important, I think. We were fortunate enough to have an awesome, awesome last night in the company of Wilmington's Ponchos from Peru and Greensboro's Invisible.

We've played with Ponchos a few times now, and each time I see them they just keep on getting better. I'm trying to get them to record an album so that we can all have some Ponchos in our homes and computers, but they are procrastinating so when you get a chance gently encourage tracking and recording behavior.

I had heard of Invisible through a friend who attended their show at BCHQ, and reported that they were amazing. Then I saw one of their contraptions in a production held at Manbites Dog Theater (presented by Little Green Pig theatrical concern), Europe Central...the Selectric Piano.

In any case, I love it when bands do some things not the same. Some different things. Like making therimins and funny sounds...but doing so in a way that is interesting and more honest than hokey, if you know what I mean. Invisible are that unique combination of band that is this: nice people, inventive music, great performance, fun songs.

We left Greensboro and headed home to Durham. It was so good to be back home. Huge thanks to Resist Not and Evelyn for taking care of Syba. We heard that she slept on their bed and everything. Big thanks to Keelee and Catherine for taking care of moody little Greco too.

Summary: The best part about touring, apart from vegan cake endorsements, is hanging out and hearing other musicians. This can be the worst part too - but fortunately, that was not the case on this tour.