Well, i haven’t diaried Virginia, boston or new York as i’ve been busy like heck. thankfully, Bart the bear has been running his yap so there you go! we split in 2 days so i’ll most likely do a diary from london next, from one of those crap phonebooth-emailers…

well, we played the Birchmere in Virginia, which was this sort of country and western-looking dinner place that held 600 people or something like that. there was a huge dead salmon backstage that was whole and had been smoked. some people ate it. we got to shower at this place so it was nice to feel refreshed; oh, we shower every day, no worries folks. it’s just we weren’t going back to our hotel after this show so we left our hotel early and were kicking around at the venue.

carrie and julie went running and dan was practicing his trumpet and stuff. pete and mike f. were trying to organize the stage in a way that made sense and didn’t piss Ana off. but the problem got solved, although it was still a small stage. the club brought us tons of food later (ribs, sandwiches, you name it) and like 10 pitchers of beer, particularly SHINER BOCK, the best beer to ever come out of texas and, since Julie is Texas (as well as also being embarrassed to be from the same state as Dubya, Dixie Chick style).

we hit the stage after the opening act finished, who were really good. We played, what i thought, was a good show. it was a strange house but people enjoyed it and it ain’t too often you get to hear those lovely southern accents (no joke; i love em…we’re always trying to get Julie to give us that Texas Drawl…c’mon Julie!!!! whooo-hooo!!!!!

Um, where was I? Virginia, yes. so after the show the SINGER signed a bunch of autographs while we all chilled and drank beer and stuff. Then, when it was about 11:30pm, we set off for Newark, New Jersey, where we had a hotel waiting for us. 5 1/2 hours later, we wind up there and mike f. somehow got us there in one piece. the rooms were really nice and we enjoyed all of 4 hours of it cause that’s when the wake-up call arrived.

then it was back on the road and our nice trip to Boston where we drove thru the snowy land of Connecticut. Probyn got out to make a snowball while we stopped for a pee break, looked out the window and said, ‘this is my country’. I nearly cried. ok, I didn’t nearly cry. but I did understand. I wanted to tell him Randy Newman had a song with that title. but I didn’t. we were 3 hours from Boston. so I looked out at the snow on the ground and put Tenacious D back on the personal stereo. sometimes you just gotta rawk.

Mike Randle