post-tour. pre-menstrual.
feeling extraordinarily shaky and sad. post-tour mortem, maybe, i also hate, hate, hate, hate the cold weather to the core of my being, i’m also buried in a pile of Work Shit and everybody else around be seems to be dealing with one drama or another. a few minutes ago my best friend’s mom passed away. she was old, it was coming, but it sent waves. i’m happy i’m not dead, and i’m happy nobody i know is dying at the very moment. that helps.
i may try to blog on the plane down to describe my despair, but i may just let it leave. PMS. it’s not just for dinner anymore.
i’m also working, in my head, on some other blog topics i’d love to throw out there.
topic one: children. i read THIS and it pissed me off. i need to explain.
topic two: labia. why the fuck are pre-teen girls slicing them off to be “normal”? NO GOOD, says amanda.
topic three: what i’m doing for the next year and how you might be able to help….
speaking of help: if you HAVEN’T YET VOTED IN THE BOSTON MUSIC AWARDS…..DO SO HERE. and HERE is a little giveaway/thank you we’re doing for those who vote. your vote over there actually counts, and there’s only another day or so left. do it.
anyway.
tour’s over and i’m finally alone after the holiday blitz. leaving in just a minute to go to my dad’s with my sister and her Man for a two-day visit.
what a fantastic fucking tour it was though…every show has it’s little stories and weirdnesses and the band just got better and better every night.
by the time we finished, it felt like it was time to hit the road and really play. the guys in nervous cabaret, and melissa, their manager, they’re just wonderful people. i felt lucky to be with them.
here’s the gang, backstage RIGHT before we hit stage for our last show, in knoxville:
that’s (from left to right) elyas (frontman & guitar), fred (trumpet), brian (drums) and sam. kenny’s missing, but you’ll see him further down….
in a sheep head.
i met a lot of people i’d known before, i signed every night, i got to collide with a bunch of friends, people fed us delicious foods.
we felt taken care of. except in northampton, when the fucks at the venue wouldn’t turn the heat on. fuckers.
SO many people brought wonderful THINGS, from food to booze to love and presents, i can’t list you but i can thank you.
thank you. thank you. really. you know who you are. thank you.
i feel sickeningly grateful for what i see when i hit the road.
one thing that makes me happiest is seeing how fucking NICE all of my fans are to one another.
if it felt like extended family before, now it feels like close family. the degree of trust is just insane.
we’re like deadheads without the tie-dye.
my favorite shot of all tour, taken as we paraded onto the stage in brooklyn:
by http://www.flickr.com/photos/subinev/
speaking of that night.
you should watch this. it’s a fantastic clip of the band, me and neil and the assembled entourage of freaks backstage in NYC getting ready for the show.
2 hours before this clip was taken, neil and i got rear-ended on the BQE on our way to the show and had to pull over and deal with the scary shakiness of being in an accident. we were both a little freaked.
the shirtless man you see is sam, the trombone player.
the space you see up parading through before the show with the megaphone is the bar UNDER the venue…we had to walk through it to get to the lobby so we could enter from the back of the house.
it was fucking fantastic. i felt so happy to be alive (car accident notwithstanding) and have this job. you can tell.
but now?
it’s reckoning time as i stand at the cliff-edge of my life and look down at the abyss.
i just wrote three paragraphs of bitchfest about my life and deleted them. some things are better left unblogged.
PMS. the other white meat.
instead
here are some great shots from tour….
these first few photos are by bryan bruchman (in portland, me):
the confession booth in portland, maine.
i twittered a few minutes before going down and those following my on twitter came into the janitor’s broom closet with me.
some people brought me beer! like this kind gentleman (who introduced himself as neil’s freind, the writer joe hill. then i googled him and now must read his books.)
wine.
phone.
win.
i think i love everything about this picture:
my girl beth (holding the CD) and her hot girlfriend kayla (holding the redbull, which we actually didn’t sell at the merch booth), hocking merchandise.
if they look adorable, it’s because they are. they live together in brooklyn and rescue cats when not digging me out of various holes.
how can they not be?
i love them and i don’t know how i’d survive all this insanity without people i liked around me.
this is kayla displaying progress on one of the live-action-auction paintings.
we tried to have a different painter come and paint on stage every night:
the paintings we didn’t auction live are up for auction on our brand new official ebay…we’ll be putting all sorts of weird shit up there from time to time, who knows what. but for now…three tour paintings. you can find it HERE.
here are two more, that sold live at the brooklyn show….(that’s fred harper on the left with neil and molly crabapple on the right, in-between fred and i):
photo (as well as a bunch further down) by lauren goldberg/fairytalevegas.com
kenny, the sheepish bass-player:
photo by bryan bruchman
rocking out:
photo by jim gavenus
and yep, as evidenced below, i’m still in love. so’s he. it’s good. it’s better than good, it’s the fucking best.
we’re good for each other.
this is not a department of my life about which i cam concerned.
writing this blog is helping cure my PMS. mostly the pictures are just making me happy.
this is mr franz nicolay (of major general, the hold steady & world/inferno friendship society) KILLING it with us in brooklyn…
and the incredible sxip shirey………..and if you were wondering what kenny looked like WITHOUT the sheep head, there you have it:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshlarkin/4117971483/
the boys….elyas, fred and sam….
photo also by josh larkin
painting by HeatherRose in burlington on the first night of the tour:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/heatherrosestudios/4102565996/
being an adult during the talk for hypebot.com:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/phearlez/4119219535/in/set-72157622717319917/
being a total child and playing ukulele atop some poor bastards shoulders:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dust/4122387700/in/set-72157622819660064/
with my dad, mr jack palmer, at the falls church. VA show…..
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brightestyoungthings/sets/72157622857172140/
and here you have the whole deal………….me and my peeps in falls church, as part of the hypebot talk (which you can see HERE…)
XXXXXXXXXXX
AFP
ps – we SOLD OUT of the new design of hoodies on tour, so we reprinted and you can order ‘em here to keep you warm this chilly winter: http://www.jsrdirect.com/webstores/afp&dresdendolls/clothing.html
we MAY also reprint a short run of the tour tees (sans date back) for those of you who loved the art but couldn’t make it to the shows, so keep your eyes open.
