If you haven't seen it, it's suggested that you watch this video before reading this story.

Last night we played at Club Deville in Austin. After playing, I walked into the bathroom. A guy rushed out of the stall holding an iphone out toward me, playing the above video. "Do you know about keyboard cat?" He spoke a bit faster, a bit louder than necessary.
"Yeah, I've seen it."
He motioned toward a guy leaving the bathroom. "He's never heard of keyboard cat." He walked back into the stall while I stood at the urinal. As I peed I heard the combination of the following sounds coming from the stall next to me:
"Meow Meow Meow." "SNNNIIIIFFFF." "OH GOD KEYBOARD CAT KICKS SO MUCH ASS!" "MEOW MEOW." "KEYBOARD CAT IS SO AWESOME!" "SNIIIIIFFFFF."

King of the Bristol Mall

The highway sign indicated a Chik Fil A at the Bristol, VA exit, and this turned out to be in the mall food court. Have you ever been to the Bristol, VA mall on a Saturday night? Of course not, why would you? Why was I? While ordering shitty Chinese, (one of three options in this food court) two nineties grunge kids passed behind me. The one in a wheelchair unemphatically listed swears: “shit, piss, ass, damn, fuck…” The place was full of unattractive teenagers and out of shape middle aged people. “I felt like I could take out a semi automatic weapon and just take these people out,” Toups said as we left. Not that I wanted to, but I agreed that I COULD. There was nothing real about this place. Or at least nothing real about my being in this place. I Could rule this people if I didn’t want to leave so badly. I could stand on top of the table and declare, “I’m from Louisiana, and you’re gonna listen to me from now on. Anyone who can spell my name right can serve on my court. The rest of you can make me a corndog.”
I’ll be home in a few hours, watching the Saints game, defragging my brain. I ain’t wired so good right now.

Tha Carter III

After our set at the Velvet Lounge, we split up for the night: Toups and I to Stephen’s, and Christiaan, Jonny and Pete to Ben’s. We walked a few blocks to Stephen’s car, and found a rear window shattered and the contents of his car rifled through. The person had gone through a box of Cassettes merch, ignored the GPS and tripod, and taken a book of burned Nick Cave CDs. In the back seat was a baseball sized rock, underneath which were flyers for Tha Carter III ringtones that weren’t in the car before. Stephen filed a report and we headed to Arlington.
We ate at a diner in Arlington whose name I forget. It was two names, Bob and Millie or something. It was 3:30 in the morning and all the hoochies in town had squeezed their big ol’ asses into tiny little neon dresses and gathered for pancakes and pattie melts. Stephen was brought the wrong sandwich, so the server corrected his order and left the first sandwich for him. Then a plate of eggs and hash browns that we didn’t order was brought out. While we were laughing at the ridiculous amount of food on the table, they brought me a second turkey burger (no mayo or tomato, just as I’d ordered the first). My guess is that they were showing sympathy for Stephen, who mentioned when ordering that his car had been broken into.

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When we began touring, mealtime was a chance to embark on an adventure into the unknown. We explored unfamiliar cities, hoping to discover, in addition to a cheap and tasty meal, a better understanding and awareness cities we’d never been to before, and maybe some surprises (bears?) would pop up. But now, upon repeated visits, habit and familiarity have given me mental constructs of giant cities that are limited to the paths to and from food, such that by now, my understanding of Manhattan is organized in relation to “that Indian restaurant with the lights”, and Tampa for me exists only as the three blocks between New World Brewery and Mamie’s Alaskan Tacos.
One day, maybe twenty years from now, I’ll stop in DC on vacation. My kids will ask me why we’re eating chili dogs, and I’ll have no answer but, “Because we’re in Washington,” and they’ll give me that annoyed look kids give dads who give dumb answers. I can’t wait to be old and square.

I'm giving up on titles.

The Office may be finding bigger and dumber sharks to ramp over each week now, but Scranton is pretty much as we left it last year, just much warmer. After unloading the van at the Bog, we drove out to Kristen’s family’s lake house where Paul and Kristen had grilled steak and chicken with corn, green beans, and mashed potatoes. We were the only band that night, so we played a regular set, then after a break, made a very shaky practice run of Ziggy Stardust. I made it though most of the songs, but am very aware of what I have to work on for Saturday. People (by which I mean one very persistent, but unsuccessful person) begged us to play more. The next morning, at the lakehouse, I woke to biscuits, eggs, bacon, sausage, and hash browns. Real breakfasts are very rare and exciting on the road.

NY

Shortly after arriving in New York, we drove past McCaulay Kulkin, who was walking down the street. We found the church where we had to pick up our CMJ passes. I retrieved my pass and hung it on my neck, then walked down to the street where I saw all the other tight-jeaned, prolonged-adolescent jerk-offs with orange lanyards around their necks, and slipped the pass into my back pocket. I walked into a nearby building (some NYU building) where I picked up my schwag tote bag, the most exciting content of which was a condom sized organic food-mush product. I walked into an adjacent room where companies set up demo booths. In less than a minute, I concluded that I didn’t care about anything in the room and returned to the van. After a brief stop at the artists lounge (free “rockstar hairdos” anyone?) we loaded in at Wicked Willy’s (“time flies when you’re having rum”) a pirate themed, beer pong bar with stripper poles on the corners of its coffee table sized stage, and basketball playing on its warehouse sized TV screen*. We sat in the van for an hour, so as not to have to move it out of the loading zone, which became a legitimate parking space at 6. Soon after, Phil arrived from New Jersey, and we went to the sushi restaurant a few doors down from Willy’s. For too much money, I ordered the smallest pieces of sushi I’ve ever eaten in my life. It was enough to get me through the set. We played like poop, but people seemed to like it. We sold a lot of cd’s. We earned 162 CMJ points, and we’re riding a tour bus home and Opening for Aerosmith in Europe.** Pete and I ate pizza at the Booth (“gourmet Cajun pizza” with not the slightest hint of Louisiana), before heading back to Brooklyn, where I fell asleep in the middle of Being John Malkovich. I think seeing Where the Wild Things Are (GO SEE IT) before leaving Lafayette put us in the mood for Spike Jonze.
This morning I ate some Donette’s and walked to Bombay Café, where I ate some delicious onion naan, salad, saag chicken, and daal for under $10! I left New York without ever getting on a subway, and I never took the jerk-off necklace out of my pocket, as all the privileges it allowed me were dumb.
*While I am trying to paint an uninviting portrait of the venue, my only gripe with this last detail is that regular season basketball was on the 15 foot screen while the Phillies/Dodgers game was on the 30 inch screen.
**I stole that joke from Pete.

Cheesesteak

After eating some Cincinatti chili at Paul and Kristen’s, we headed into Philadelphia, where we picked up Catherine, our hostess for the night, and her friend Amy, and went straight to the venue, The Fire. We played last, and our crowd basically consisted of the people whose names are mentioned in that first sentence. After the show, we walked from Catherine’s apt to an intersection that featured the gaudily lit Geno’s, and the respectably low key Phil’s, both cheese-steakeries. We ate at Pat’s. I wasn’t all gung ho about cheese steaks like some people, but out of a sense of obligation for being in Philadelphia I ordered a steak “wit” (with onions) “wiz” (cheese whiz). It was underwhelming—street-corner carnival food more or less.




























We woke up yesterday (yesterday? What the hell, this trip is screwing up my sense of time) and walked to the Italian district for Mexican food (I know, it doesn’t make sense), then headed out to New York.




Toups watches Latin MTV