AND WE'RE BACK......
Holy crap, dudes! Holy crap! Summer is pretty much in full-effect. I took off with Adrian Orange and Meghan Crotty again on another 3-day tour through the eastern northwest; eastern OR and WA to be completely fair.
Day one: We drive to Pendleton, OR and meet up with our new friend Peter. We play on a nearby reservation radio station before hitting the downtown coffee shop and playing a mildly-early show at the Pendleton arts center. Our awesome friends from Walla Walla meet us there, along with special friend Jason Anderson. Jason is around until he flies back to spend his summer in New Hampshire, and his company is super nice. The show was okay. There were kids around at first, for our surprise friends' bands "Lamplighter" and "Cactus Flower Wonderland Band," but during my YACHT set, a popular-looking teen girl in an awesome tie-dye comes in and steals half of the crowd. That's cool, man. I don't mind so much. Adrian was a little bummed and that resulted in a deeper, darker Thanksgiving set.
Day two: We rolled to Walla Walla right after the Pendleton show and Oliver (Lamplighter) made us a really nice stir-fry tofu-garlic dinner. We watched a bunch of Mumbleboy cartoons and our minds sort of melted. The next day Mirah rolled into town with her awesome girlfriend Emily and we ate a really awesome dinner at the Whitman College cafeteria-place. A nice foodservice worker asked me my name and I blushed. We played a show in the student union basement/coffehouse to about 150 nice college kids. I fell off the stage dancing and thrashing and the sound was sort of crummy. I loved Mirah's set with Emily on drums. I loved playing "ethereal" drums on one song, and drums "like rain" on another.. so hippy. After the show Mirah reminded me of this story where in the year 2000 I told her I loved her and she replied (after nearly 10 seconds of awkward silence) "uhhh.. i love you too, Jona." I love Mirah. I loved hanging out with her in Japan on the Dear Nora tour I went on in 2002. Totally nice dude. Buy her new album.
Day three: We ate a big breakfast with everyone and went thrift shopping. I bought some pretty incredible dolphin-shorts with strips and a cute pocket on them. Then we bought slurpees at 7-11 and headed for the Pioneer Park Aviary. There were albino peacocks! Oh man! We got to see a male peacock spread his feathers and shake! Peahen! After the aviary we said our goodbyes and took off for Kennewick. In Kennewick we met up with our friends Blaise and Tara of the band Moon Turns the Tide. LEGIT DUDES. We hung out at their house before ripping down to the show. This dude Tim runs a label in Kennewick called Funkytonk Records, and plays drums in a prog band called Travis Bickle. He's real nice and funny. Adrian played one of my favorite Thanksgiving sets.. calm and soft and funny. The sing-a-longs were real good.. harmonies and soft voices in a small concrete room.. so good. I played the show in character, as this "weird guy" named Nick. He fell down a lot and laughed at the dances he did. His computer was named Kevin and they both lived in Grants Pass, OR. Cool dudes.
After the Kennewick show we drove home, rather, Adrian drove home and I slept in the back. Adrian recently received his Oregon Driver's License.. which is a privilege, right? YES. So..... he's still in the excited phase of driving.. which rules for me when I'm real tired. We got home to Portland around 4:45 AM and I've been pretty much EFFED all day. I saw Mean Girls with Jason and Steve and I loved it so much. Tina Fey.. oh my god. I really, really wish she wasn't married. I would totally ask the universe to be her husband.. or just boyfriend.. something..
Truly,
Jona
I was excited to see you two days in a row. You and Adrian make a good team.
Nick was pretty weird, but the show at 321 was probably one of the best times I've had in a while. Thanks for talking me into buying the Own Zone comp, I do love it.
Come back around to Eastern, WA some time. We love you here.
My favorite journal post of all time.
Walla Walla was great!
Kennewick was great!
Yay for Adrian being able to drive in Oregon.