Coma Tour – Tucson

Tonight there was a kid desperate for attention, being super imposing with everybody, shaking hands, exclaiming things about his good mood, dancing around, singing at people. There is often this type of guy at shows, and it’s starting to wear on me. We had one in Pomona too. It’s the type of person who stands in the very front when the band plays, dances, looks at everybody straight in the face, pumps his fist in the air to the music, tries to high-five and hug people around him, and is usually dressed in Mervyns clothes.

I see it happen all the time in Albuquerque, but apparently it’s a world-wide phenomenon. There really needs to be a name for these people, because they all act the same. While they smile and act like they’re super high on life, there’s this underlying feeling that if anybody gives him an “omg, stfu”, he would flip out and a fight would ensue.

I really hate fights. But lately I let my mind explore vivid, personal beat-down scenarios; the common fantasy to be the ultimate lesson-giver, law-layer, Chuck Norris-type figure.

After the show, we set off to drive straight home through the night. We played lots of word games, including making up band names, which seemed pretty hilarious at the time.

Coma Tour – Phoenix

We dished out cash for a hotel last night, just outside of the city, so this morning we decided to drive back by taking highway 1 through Malibu.

For breakfast we went to an organic market called Erewhon where I spent another $20 on a single meal, most of it being the price of a super tonic tea. I felt pretty good after drinking it. But eleven-dollars-good? Maybe. Chances are, it added 11 minutes to my life span.

We made the drive from LA to Phoenix, AZ. Tonight we played at Revolver Records, another Vinyl Record shop.  Josh came to the show and we stayed at his house, where old friends and Las Crucians John and Paige Ashcroft live.

Coma Tour – Los Angeles

Today, Tommy, Noel, and I went to RAWvolution in Santa Monica. It’s a raw foods restaurant with super high-priced everything. But boy, was it delicious. Even Helen Hunt likes it. I never would have known it if Noel didn’t point and say “that’s Helen Hunt”. What a curse to be famous.

I got Nori Tacos and a Maca Smoothie. $20 later, we walked down to the beach to meet Dustin and Will, and prance around like a bunch of tourists in the sand.

A little bit of joy was unearthed from the forgotten mantle of childhood emotions.

We played tonight at Vacation, a vinyl record shop. I started to like the idea of getting into and buying vinyl… for my non-existent record player that I’d also have to buy.

Coma Tour – Hollywood

Last night we crammed into a one-bedroom apartment with touring mates Hellas Mounds, making a total of 15 people to find space to sleep. Noel and Tommy slept in the van, and woke us up in the morning. I guess we all stunk up the place pretty bad, but I didn’t notice because I was immersed in whatever-stench the whole night.

Today we walked and drove around Hollywood. The most notable stop was the “Psychiatry: An Industry of Death” museum. Inside, there were exhibits and video stations full of propganda designed to make you think that Psychiatry is 100% evil, that it’s a playground for the dark deeds of mad scientists.

The early history of Psychiatry is pretty shocking in its archaic theories and experiments to heal psychoses (spinning contraptions and torture techniques). But this place hopes we should write off what we know about treating mental conditions completely… by playing scary music with holocaust footage, and images of lobotomies and shock treatments.

But there are no doubt some scary sides of psychiatry, such as a mandate with the whole new American health care plan to make pregnant women take anti-depressants for post-partum depression during pregnancy. It’s already been mandated in New Jersey, and a woman was put in Jail for refusing to take her pills. This is what the guy at the front desk told us.

This is a photo from the music/photography venue we played tonight:

This is also a photo from the music/photography venue we played tonight:

Coma Tour – Pomona

Tommy picked us up separately, starting at 7:30am. We drove from Albuquerque to Pomona, CA in 11 hours. Noel has come along for the ride this time. I have the whole back seat in the van to myself. I thought I would like it, but I am isolated in a way, as every conversation in front of me is drowned out by van ambience. So I made sure to lean forward, listen, and laugh along to tour jokes for a portion of the way.

Tonight we played at a bar called Characters, and sports bar. Flat screen TVs displayed ESPN highlights of football and hockey in every corner, and behind bands during performance. When people cheered and clapped after we were done, I wasn’t sure if it was because of a touchdown or what.

The Coma Recovery in the Newspaper

The Coma Recovery is going on a week-long tour in the Southwest starting January 2nd.

Today Tommy called me because a dude from the Albuquerque Journal urgently needed a photo of us within a few hours. If we couldn’t find a photo to give, he wouldn’t be issuing an article about us in the newspaper. That didn’t seem like much of a threat, because I had no idea we were even going to be in the newspaper.

We never take band photos, so Tommy and I could only think of searching for a photo from tour that was decent enough to put in the newspaper.

I thought the series of wig photos was funny enough to throw together as a possibility. Of course, it became clear that it wasn’t really an option to be selected for the article. Or was it? Nah, probably not.

Sidenote: Will is going to be doing the tour. But after that, he’s back to Austin. Sometimes, to me, leaving town for a very long time again sounds like a fun idea.

Eye Intelligence

My protective sunglasses at work kept fogging up on me, so for the first time I took them off, and minutes later, cement flew into my eye. It took a couple hours to fully blink it out. Eventually there was a glob of wet concrete at the inner corner of my eye. So I took time to be slightly amazed at the human body’s auto-eye cleaning.

Anyway, rumor has it that Will moved to Austin this weekend. So… we need to find out if he’s going to move back in time to drum when Coma goes to the west coast in January.

Never trust anything that bleeds for 5 hours and doesn’t die.

Today I went to band practice and Will didn’t show up. After an hour of Dustin, Tommy and I standing around in the dreadfully cold practice space, we parted ways.

I worked the Skinny Puppy show tonight at Sunshine Theater. I saw Will there, and talked about how mad I was that he didn’t show up to practice. Then we smiled a lot about I-don’t-know-what and I again remembered how hard it is to stay mad at Will.

While washing beer glasses during my barback duties, I sliced my finger on a broken glass in the sink. It wasn’t a bad slice or anything, but I found it strange that it didn’t stop bleeding for a good 5 hours. My band-aids refused to stay on, so it’s possible that somebody got a lip-full of blood among beer sips.

One Thing

Occasionally I meet up with Brian to play drums while he plays guitar. It’s apparent that our jam sessions are not frequent enough for me to remember how we played any of the songs. I usually just wing it on drums anyway, sort of like throwing paint at a wall.

Brian showed me a selection of websites, most notably sites with amazing cheap wholesale electronics from China that I never knew existed, such as cell phone watches. But, for the less-consumerist approach, I think you should check out these rather moving photographs inspired by children’s drawings.

After Brian’s, I drove straight to band practice where Coma worked on a new song. I captured the last minute here.

I finally got to see Man on Wire tonight, English subtitles in tact, and was deeply satisfied. The theme has haunted me; you pick your one thing, no matter how outrageous it is, and all that matters is that it means everything for you to do it.

The Coma Recovery: Drag Queen Show

Last night, Tommy impulsively came up with the idea of playing the Left Unsaid show in drag. It turns out we were all pretty hot as women, but let me add that in the photo above, Tommy didn’t have his make-up on yet (oooh, he’s going to be so mad at me for posting it). This is a good photo as a follow-up for the Chaz and Biff photo from last year.

When we decided to play the show in drag, all of us were a little weary of who was going to back out and make the rest of us look like morons. I expected Dustin to shun the plan entirely, but it turns out that he fully committed to the role, and actually quite enjoyed it.

Dustin did, however, prove his masculinity to the masses by making certain to headbang hard enough for his wig to come off on stage.

It was when the set was nearly finished that I realized, despite the clothing, my other bandmates were still behaving like testosterone-filled men.

The rest of the night became a social experiment; sexual-orientations were threatened, and it was dangerous to walk the streets alone.

Unfortunately I didn’t get any photos of Will, because he decided that he would get his make-over done elsewhere. As for the three of us, I believe that Noel worked some excellent magic to turn us into very hot, somewhat robust, women.

On another note, I’m finding it difficult to completely remove eye make-up. But it doesn’t really matter because tomorrow it’s D’arcy Wretzky for me.