The intimacy of just Heather and rob ilyAIMY is definately my preference, but the energy of the band? There's nothing comparable...

But now we're back to the road -

September 24th, 2003.
Will Schaff is just as I remembered. All of the energy - the hyper movement of feet - constant climbing.

We reached Rhode Island at 4 in the morning, pulled in next to police officers and weeds (they revealed themselves as flowers in the morning). We're staying with an old friend from college - Will Schaff.

Will was... I don't know what to call him. An idol of mine through school. At first I never knew what to make of him - a mohawk when I first met him, dissolving cow bones in the Commons courtyard. Later I grew to Love him, truly admiring someone who remained true to his art as I grew disillusioned with mine.

The Holocaust is a constant theme. Parts of animals. I remember visiting the warehouse floor he was Living out of in college. I remember hardwood floors and the bones of roadkill. Dead birds cradled amongst dried frogs and crucifixes. Paintings everywhere - naked Scheile-esque figures staring from every wall. Flaccid penises and the inscribed numbers of Concentration Camp victims.

4am in Rhode Island. Will is identical to how I left him. The same feirce energy. Living with someone else, I wasn't sure what his environment would be like - but sure enough, it's hardwood floors and animal parts. Perhaps the bones and skulls and skins aren't in quite as great abundance, but he's got two dogs and four cats around, and that sort of infestation is never conducive to the survival of organic materials.

One of the things I've really Loved about this Trip is the encountering of new music -

- MY FEET ARE BEING LICKED!! - The dogs are friendly .. erf... anywho - new music. I left Shane with perhaps a gig and a half of bands that I'd never heard of. Will started in immediately with "things you GOT to hear". A sort of Boston smear of words pressed with the urgency of getting everything out, and excitement of... I don't know - Will is feircely alive.

September 25, 2003.
Last night was another of our disappointment moments. The Desert Rain, or wherever we were going last night... two addresses, one from openmikes.com, and one from their website. Relatively close together, we couldn't get a person on the phone, but went on the basis that their website was very very up to date. - Sigh. One address didn't exist, and the other was some sort of burnt out steely bike shop. Add that to the list:

Rules of the Trip:
1) NO HOT DOGS.
2) NO BACON MUSHROOM CHEESEBURGERS
3) ALWAYS CARRY A CAMERA
4) ALWAYS CALL AHEAD, AND IF YOU DON'T GET AN ANSWER, DON'T GO!!!!

Oh, and this morning, rule five... I came up with it during possibly one of the best showers of my LIFE (Will's water pressure is spectactacular! - but he's got these little net things in the shower curtain sort of like shelves but they don't hold everything up at a solid angle so they sort of splay everywhere, which really was the impetus for rule five...

5) ALWAYS ASCERTAIN THE LOCATION OF ALL BACKSCRUBBY STICKS, RANDOM POLE-THINGS, AND LOOFAH DEVICES BEFORE BENDING OVER IN A NEW SHOWER.

Sheesh. Nothing too bad, just... definately a wake-up call, and a bit more intimate of an experience than I was ready for.