First 3 days in Michigan

Lisa and I arrived at O'Hare airport in Chicago very early Tuesday morning after what could only be described as the most uncomfortable flight I have ever taken. It kind of funny actually, I thought a few days ago that it had been along time since I flew on a "normal" airline. What I actually mean is a non-discount airline.

For the last 5 years I have flown nothing but Southwest and Jet Blue, so I was thinking "Wow, this is United! They'll give us food, and play a movie, and the seats will be lined with Egyptian cotton, and they will give us top shelf alcohol for free, and the clouds surrounding us would be gentle bunches of cotton candy." Boy was I wrong! Take it from me, unless you're going to fly first class, stick with Jet Blue or Southwest. What you loose in food and amenities you gain in leg room and over all comfort. On this United flight I had to sit the entire 4 1/2 hours with my legs in one position and my hands folded in my lap. The arm rests we not even big enough for one person to put their arm on, let alone share it with the person next to you.

We arrived at O'Hare around 5AM, found the rental car place and hit the road for round two of the long trip. The trip from Chicago to our destination (Haslett MI, just outside of Lansing) took us about 4 hours, which was no short of treacherous due to our joint exhaustion; I slept most of the way.

We got to Lisa's dads house around 11:30AM (after moving ahead one hour due to time zones) and immediately went to sleep. We got up around around 5 and went out with her dad for Mexican food and Margaritas. Who knew you could find decent Mexican in the Mid-West; but low and behold, we found some. After that we went home, smoked a joint and passed out again.

No much happened yesterday until the evening. We found out that The Gore Gore Girls were playing in Ann Arbor. The Gore Gore Girls are a throwback kind of a girl punk band that has roots in surf music and old time rock and roll. Lisa's friend Marlene is the lead guitar player. We saw them once before at a Halloween show at the Warfield in SF. The opened for the Cramps; The Eagles of Death Metal played that night as well (this was the infamous night were I caught Josh from Queens of the Stone Age hitting on Lisa back stage... Hey, she's hot!). Anyway, here is a pic of the Girls from their website.

Marlene is the one standing up. Here is a better pic of just her:

Anyway, if you have a chance to check them out on one of their tours, I highly recommend it. They are really tight and have a really catchy and enjoyable sound.

Well, that's all from the Midwest at the moment. We'll be heading to Detroit a little later today to see more of Lisa's family and visit a bit more with the aforementioned Marlene.

Back home (for anyone interested), before I left, Soul Broker finished tracking all but one of the vocal tracks for our upcoming album. I will lay down the vocals for the final track after the first of the year, then we will lay a few backing vocals, a couple of sound effects, and begin mixing. We are looking at being completely done by the end of January for an early March release party; so keep your ears open for that.

Happy Holidays Everyone.

That's right, I said it! Fuck the Christian-Right and they're Merry Christmas Bullshit! There are more than just Christians in this country celebrating holidays right now.