Robert:

I am outside of the Creepy Crawl in St Louis. I am procrastinating the creation of a column. I'm so good at it.

Tour viewing:

Guided by Voices "Watch Me Jumpstart"... Very interesting documentary on one of my favorite bands, and more specifically one of the curiously, unwaveringly, no-nonsensely prolific songwriters in the world. Do you think that Mr. Pollard just goes ahead and writes, oh 10 songs a day, knowing that at least 2 of them may actually grow up to be great ones? And does he then say, "Ok, these three can go on the solo record, this one will be a B-side, and the other 4 I can store under the bed for Suitcase #2" ? I just got an idea for an interesting article. My top 50 Guided By Voices songs. Hmmm.

You Can Count on Me... I had been putting off seeing this movie for a long long time. Before even seeing one lonely snippet, I thought it was just another one of those downer movies. Wonderful in the moment, yet nothing you'd want to ever see again... But I enjoyed it tremendously. Bravo Mark Ruffalo. Once I get online, I'm going to have to check out his resume. Impressive, I hear. Ditto for Laura Linney. You get the impression that both of them are such amazing actors, that they could have made, oh, Rush Hour 2 (or something horribly similar) an Oscar contender if they were cast in the leads... I'll steal TFMIC's line and say the acting is perfectly understated.

***

I'm in an OK mood. Listening to the new Flaming Lips.
posted by Robert at 1:47 PM ***

Ryan Snyder:

St. Louis, home of Nelly, you did not disappoint. "It's getting hot in here, so take off all your clothes", and yes it was damn hot and no I did not take off all my clothes.
posted by Ryan Snyder at 1:39 PM ***

TBELL:


Howdy kids. So it goes, today is the last day of my phone plan and I got one minute left. My plan 'flips' tomorrow... no calls before 8pm please cause I won't answer..

Tour is moving along and we had a fantastic show at the Metro in Chicago (last night) as usual.. thanks guys! Always an amazing time there. Bob has officially outdone himself with signing us up with this NetFlix thing.. I'm excited to see Mean Machine by request, should be arriving soon..

Not much else.. gonna do a little blogging over here now. Late.


posted by TBELL at 2:32 PM ***

Robert:

Weekend EP, meet everybody.

Usually, something of note has to happen to me at least 4 times before I can retain it for future use. I don't know where that messed up part of me came from but it's there. This is why the Massivewasteoftime.com domain name has expired without a peep from the host. You figure I would have learned after the heymercedes-domain-renewal scramble. But I didn't. Oh well. Know this. I have been taking lots of neat photos, and I'll upload them as soon as I compile a healthy bundle. Bless you, Ryan, my child, for stepping up to the plate in a time of desparate need.

I'm at home, too. Doing laundry. Packing up all of the items that I forgot the first time around. Having a day off after 3-4 shows has become quite essential. Your body is just starting to feel the pain, the bumps and bruises, the fatigue... and your voice is just starting to give you the bees wax... Thankfully, we have Healing Day... And then, starting tonight, we're right back into it. Lemme at em.

Enjoyed that Flat Top Grill last night. Bravo. Even though it put me in a pissy mood (you can ask Todd about that one / maybe too much horseradish tofu sauce?), it was still delicious. Luckily, we had a remedy at the ready a la some improv at Second City and then some drinkin' with the posse... Funny thing - I was doing your regular subject-jumping random chattiness with Todd and Audio Learning Steve, focusing mostly on movie auteurs such as PTA, Wes, Scorcese, Coens... and Dan comes up and says "You know what movie I haven't seen in a long time that I'd like to see again?" "..." "Rambo."

Piebald must have broken some mirrors on their way to Minneapolis because they have been having the worst luck. In Freeport, there was a narrow circular ramp that the vans could deftly navigate to unload, practically stage-side. Koufax and ALC got up there no problem, but when Piebald tried it with their trailer, it jack-knifed and got stuck on the curb. They had to jack up the trailer and then try and push it over... Later that night, in order to quell a semi-skirmish with Freeport's Finest, they had to pick up trash in a nearby parking lot under close supervision. (Quite the photo op!)... And then in Cincinnati, after taking a wrong turn, someone shattered their side window with a rock! Unreal. Amazingly, they are still in good spirits and ready to keep rocking. Any lesser band would be on the way home, garbage bag, duct tape and all. Bravo!

Oh yeah, website should be ready in a week.
posted by Robert at 11:45 AM ***

Robert:

Ryan - depending on your camera, you may be able to upload from the old rusty LT... We'll talk later. Perhaps at the greatest restaurant in Chicago? The photos are awesome. It seems as though something's missing, though...

Much more to come. I have a lot of useless mind ramblings to post.
posted by Robert at 7:41 PM ***

Ryan Snyder:

Alright, it took forever but I posted a few pics from tour here. Expect a ton more after tour since I won't be able to upload while on the road. If anyone has any suggestions for a better/easy picture gallery please email me.

ps: I agree with Bob. The new Koufax record is amazing and they're just as great live!
posted by Ryan Snyder at 4:01 PM ***

Ryan Snyder:

Could it be that I'm really at home? Seems kindof surreal after preparing myself to be gone until August 25th and now finding myself about to snuggle up in my bed. It's nice to be home for the moment but I do love the road. I'll be posting a link to some pictures I've taken so far later this afternoon.
posted by Ryan Snyder at 5:38 AM ***