9/20 Eugene, OR

We woke up somewhere in northern California to more sweltering heat. Really it wasn't that hot out, but cars have that magical way of making themselves into ovens. Something to do with the green house effect.

This was another 4 hours of sleep kind of night.

But I'm not really complaining too much. One word: WEED. I'd driven through northern California plenty of times, but every other time had been late in the evening. Who cares? I care, because this means that none of the shitty tourist shops in Weed are open. Weed, California. That's a town. Its name is Weed.

Matt slept while Kim and I got gas, bagels and stopped in at one of these shops. Consequence?



Yeah baby. No kidding around with this shirt.

We had a four hour drive left and during the drive Matt and Kim had a phone interview. Because the van lacks any air conditioning and it's impossible to talk on the phone with the windows down, we pulled over for a while and let Kim do the interview. Matt and I got a bit restless and found some fun things to do.

Doodling on Kim's Kotex box.


Photo sesh.









The interview ended and we continued on our way. We decided to scrap sound check and go straight to the hotel before the show so Kim could shower and we could relax for ten minutes with some cable TV. Since my brother used to go to school at the University of Oregon, I felt for a second like I was back home. But that quickly faded when I realized I never actually knew my way around town and I hadn't actually seen the venue before.

I managed to get one crappy shot during the set.


But the sets are old news at this point anyways. Because the drive to Bend the next day was only a couple hours, we decided to give ourselves the night off. This meant we would all drink and then party with Against Me! after the show. What this actually meant is that I could drink before the show, but not actually party after the show so someone could drive a drunk Matt and Kim back to their hotel. No complaints though, I had an awesome time.

During the Against Me! set, Kim and I were getting a little crazy dancing at the merch booth and during their last song Kim hopped on my back and we charged into the pit. We made it basically to the front and Tom later claimed my exceeding bright Weed shirt caused him problems during the set. Either way, Kim ended with a black eye and my new shirt seemed to grow about three sized once drenched with other peoples sweat.

After the place had cleared out, we took the oppurtunity to have a dance party with Andrew, his wife Veratay (sp?), Warren, and a couple other people. Warren also pulled some giant shades out of nowhere and sweet pictures followed.









We then made our way into the AM! bus and proceeded to have an awesome time. I really can't express how nice those guys are, and how much fun they can be when confined to a space the size of a closet with an excessive amount of alcohol.

Matt ended up using the skull beer bong twice and at some point when I was outside the bus this happened.



Kim with John, the AM! stage manager.


James.


Matt and Andrew.


Kim and Jordan (wearing Matt's glasses).


Dark picture of Dave-O, the AM! guitar tech (wearing Matt's glasses).


Johnson self portrait, on the drive back to the hotel.


Most of the night my camera was in the van, so these pictures only show the last 30 minutes or so of our night, all taken by Kim. There was lots of singing. Lots of hating on punks who are haters. I was video taped at the gas station purchasing four 40's of Old E, because for some reason at some point in the night the gas station attendant wouldn't sell to John (who wasn't drunk - the gas station guy "didn't feel comfortable" selling to him) and we wanted to make a point about how my sweet Weed shirt made me look like a Eugene local. It worked.

Went to the hotel and got to bed at five.