I have been back in "the valley" for about 2 1/2weeks now. Getting adjusted was a bit of a trick. Everything is exactly the same except slightly different. For Example, when I left for Portland, my cat, Bobo, was fat and lazy. Now two years later, he is elderly and emaciated (literally skin and bones). Ashland now sports two fast food joints, with Taco Bell, McDonalds, Dairy Queen, Pizza Hut and soon KFC closing down since I left. Now Im not big on fast food, but I do miss the late night Bell runs and I especially miss the Queens sweet Blizzards. The "Creek" is now the "Creekside" and doesn't have a deck. O'ryans just sold and is going to be closing in about a month. Omars is filled with the Great American Pizza crowd. The Hong Kong is packed and expensive. I dont even know if Alex's still exists. Luckily, there is the Beau Club to fill in the O'ryans/Omars vibe. I mainly miss sitting on the deck of the "Creek". Im working at Giseppi's again, which is like I never left. Except there are all new people there and there are some slight changes in how you do things. The room Im sleeping in is my old room, except now its an office. Like I said, slight changes. It reminds me of a David Lynch flick, where it goes from reality into dream reality or subconscious reality without really signalling.
I spent the week and half leading up to Coachella drinking every night with Wispy. He was the only other guy in town with nothing in particular to do or with a female putting him in a freedom full-nelson. The only highlights from these particular nights were both at O'ryans. I got a guy so pissed at me about my stance on Barry Bonds that he wanted to beat the shit out of me (even though he had the same opinion I did), and then the next was when Some scummy ass toothless piece of shit tried to steal Wispy's jacket. Fun.
Coachella was a blast. We listened to the new PEEPING TOM album on the way down laughing about its silly lyrics ("Driving Lambourginis and sipping Martinis..."). Me and Wispy managed to get the beat to MF DOOM's "Rap Snitch Knishes" stuck in our heads, something that would come back to haunt us while we were high and drunk and standing around the drum tent. Great shows, Hot Chicks, Hot Weather, Lax Security. What more can you ask for? It was nice to actually hang out with Eric's lady for longer than the total two seconds I had met her previously. We got along quite nicely and we spent the whole trip pissing Eric off on purpose, like when he woke up from a nap in the car, we told we missed a turn and we were going to still get there but it was gonna take longer. You know, stuff like that. It got so bad that eventually on the last day of the trip Eric had to plead to us "Please! Please stop trying to make me mad!". Oh man that was fun.
The shows I caught at Coachella were:
Saturday------
Celebration
The Walkmen
Wolfmother (two songs)
Animal Collective (Four songs)
Deerhoof (First 30 min)
TV on the Radio
Sigur Ros
Eagles of Death Metal
Depeche Mode (Half of their set)
Daft Punk
Sunday------
Giant Drag (first half)
Phoenix (Most of it)
Minus the Bear
Bloc Party (just some of it while I was eating a hot dog, terrible band, terrible dog)
Gnarls Barkley
Seu Jorge
Mogwai (three songs)
Massive Attack
Tool
Awards for Best Show at Coachella:
1st - Daft Punk
2nd - TV on the Radio
3rd - Tool
4th - Seu Jorge
5th - Massive Attack
Best Introduction Award - Eagles of Death Metal had Danny Devito introduce them (drink in hand)
Should have been on a bigger stage Award - Gnarls Barkley, damn that was packed
Should have been on a bigger stage 2nd place Award - Daft Punk, I think they drew more than Depeche Mode, it felt like it at least
Most over-rated band - Wolfmother, HEY we play dancey retro rock!
Band I wanted to stab in the face - The Scissor Sisters, whos sounds drowned out Tool more than a few times.
Show that had the hottest chicks - Tie - TV on the Radio and Deerhoof
When we got back to town, I lost my drinking buddy (Wisp) to an early morning job. So I went out the other night by myself assuming as this is Ashland, Ill run into someone I know, which I ran into tons, although only one recognised me. I ended up overdrawing my account (by 6 cents).
Then I had to work all cinco de mayo!!!!!
Untill next time
SLEDG
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