A-2-fay

That was actually the label on a batch of ettouffee at Cajun Charlie’s.  See… the band took a trip to Louisiana this weekend.  Fun trip too!  despite the stress of having to drive in Louisiana.on Friday I had to rush home and pack and ruch out to Joe’s house and we were already an hour late.  Thankfully the moment I go tthere we up and left.  The rental car was a trip in itself.  Joey was in charge of that and he was goign to get us a Grand Prix (roughly translates to "large penis" in french) however the Hutto dealership didn’t have one.  So they decided to upgrade the car for free.  to a mini-van.  grrrrr.  However they did mention that it didn’t get as good of gas mileage and when Joey was having reservations about that because of the fucktarded gas prices ($2.51 most places for REGULAR gas. $2.71 and $2.91 respectively for higher grades) they offered a free tank of gas.  All we had to do was return it with the tank as close to empty as possible.  Joey says "You just sold it."

So here we are… the price was half off anyway because it was a weekend… we have this rental Pontiac Montana mini-van for the WHOLE WEEKEND for $60 and it’s full up on gas.  we had no problem fitting in there.  The seats even leaned back.  that’s about all though.  So we get going about an hour and a half late, and we decide to take a shortcut that Joey’s uncles used a few weeks prior when they went down to the casinos so Joey calls like 5 uncles before he finally finds someone.  Of course his phone was crap as usual and the person on the other end couldn’t hear him so he raised his voice and got this heavy spanish accent and I just about cried I laughed so hard.  To think that Joey had to talk in a spanish accent for his uncle to understand him was just too funny.  but then it turned out it was Matt Smith and he only looks mexican but he’s pretty white in all actuality.  in fact it was Matt if you remember who re-introduced me to Joey and hooked up the band.  but the whole Matt thing made it not as funny but it was still funny that I thought he had to talk in a mexican accent to his uncles. 

Anyway.  Joe passed out almost immediately.  We passed some awesome water towers with giant smiley faces on them but Joe was asleep.  We were heading in to Houston and I was the one who came up with the idea to go see Brian since it was on the way and we needed dinner.  I had originally thought we were goign to shack up at his place for the night and start off the next morning early but we decided instead to just keep goign after dinner.  So we called up Brian and set up dinner at IHOP since it was gonna be like 11PM when we got there, and we made it 30 minutes early!  so that was cool.  It never ceases to amaze me with that guy.  No matter how long it’s been since we’ve seen him it’s like no time has passed at all.  He’s one of those guys you’re always friends with.  I’m sad he left the band.  But he is starting up his own band in Houston and we do plan to tour together.  They’re called Days Later or Days Away or something to that effect.  I can’t remember.  Joey, if you read this what’s his band name?  So we said our goodbyes and gave him a live CD of us, and then we parted ways again.

We made it through Houston with no traffic for once.  It was kinda surreal.  Houston is one of the largest cities in the US.  and certainly one of the fattest.  The farther we got the lumpier the roads got.  it was fucking annoying.  It was like riding a retarded tiger.  We made it to Orange Texas that night deciding to stop before Lake Charles.  It was still an hour away and we were getting tired.  Shit I was tired all day that day.  We listened to some cool music like Foo Fighters and Elvis Costello, and the comedy stylings of David Cross, but there was still plenty to go around.  I hated the mini-van the whole way.  The hood looked perpetually like it was gonna blow up in our faces and we were gonna have a Tommy Boy moment.  Also none of the interior lights worked like they were supposed to.  you had to turn them all on with one retarded switch or all off.  And there was a control for a skylight… but there was no skylight.  It was retarded.  Also the sun visors did nothing to block the sun.

Anyway, the Best Western motel in Orange tried to ass rape me with $77 bucks.  We payed… well… not yet we didn’t but she got my credit card info and we hauled our stuff up to room 408.  Despite the fancy number it was on the second floor.  The first thing we took care of is that we counted our money.  Godzilla is the mighty keeper of the Phoenix Saga payroll.  We had $110 in $5 bills alone.  W00t for tips.  After we were done violating the business end of Godzilla for our financial ends, we watched the business end of Carrie, where she gets the pig blood dumped on her head and goes berserk.  Joe learned where Joey got the line "They’re all gonna laugh at you!" and we got to see some fun teke and explosions.  Then we watched something else that I didn’t pay attention to.  Then we went to bed.  I slept on my sleeping bag on the floor with my pillow.  That was the most uncomfortable floor ever.  I’m gonna sue them.  I got so stiff.  in my back you pervs.

Anyway we woke up at 11AM.  That’s exactly when checkout time was.  We leaped up, I rolled my sleeping back up tighter and faster than I ever have before, we raced downstairs to check out and met the Indian lady with the brittish accent.  I thought this was quite odd considering the fact that she looked to be from India, but she had a brittish accent, and yet, here she was in Orange Texas of all god forsaken places.  And That’s where the roads start resembling Louisiana roads.  I’ll get to that in a moment.  After Joey bought enough time to take a shower we decided that since we paid so handsomely for the room we were entitled to take whatever we needed with us.  we picked up some toilet paper, some soap, some shampoo, 2 kinds of coffee, and a bible.  that’s like $20 right there.  We got the idea for the bible from David Cross.  I’ll have to read it sometime.  Since I have it.

We hit the road again and this time I was driving.  I don’t remember seeing a "welcome to Louisiana" sign or anything but I think the river we crossed must have been the Red River because suddenly everything turned into swamp.  We were definitely in Louisiana.  We were going to go to Cajun Charlie’s in Lake Charles for lunch, but we missed the exit, and when I went to turn around, I got stuck in the most confusing trap of two-way access roads EVAH.  Evah evah evah.  We listened to Outkast at that part of the trip.  I took the exit after exit 20, which was the one I was supposed to take, but some jackass semi truck was farting around in my blind spot like he was trying to piss me off.  He succeeded.  We decided we coudl eat there ont he way back, and kept going.  Also we listened to the Pixies.  and yall… there was a town called Opalousus. 

Which sounds like that one indecipherable lyric they sing in that one song?  well maybe yall don’t know the Pixies that well but it was hialrious.  AND THEN WE SAW THE BEAR X-ING SIGN.  A FUCKING BEAR CROSSING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SWAMP IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE LOUISIANA.  Brilliant.  That sign is soooo ours.  We’re taking it.  Period.

We saw a sign for a KFC buffet which we’ve never seen before evah.  Evah Evah Evah.  So we decide that would be a good place to eat.  Since we’re out of gas.  That led to us missing another exit due to a fucking minivan, and Ihadtoloopbackaroundonthefeederroadlikeyounomallywould, andthenIaskedJoeyiftheKFCwasonthissideoftheroadandhesaidyes, buthethoughtIsaidtheothersideoftheroadandIendedupgoingdownthislongassfeederroadandIfoundalittleumm… schoolIthinkandIturnedaroundandtriedtogoundertheoverpassalongsidetherailroadtracksbuttheroadonlywentstraight… southorwestandwewantedtogoeastsoIwentwesttotrytofindanotherturnaroundandtheROADWOULDN’TFUCKINGEND.  *DEEP GASPING BREATH OF AIR*….. I hate cajun roads.  They’re lumpy and they make no sense.  We finally found a turn aroudn at a major road and saw some hurricane evacuation signs.  They said "hurricane evacuation route ^ ".  HAHAHHA north.  duh.  AWAY from the strom folks.  Turns out lots of people go to Arkansas or Alabama to escape a hurricane.  What.  The.  Fuck.  Don’t you know that when a hurricane (spinning counter-clockwise by the way) hits the gulf coast it heads… EAST?  People in Louisiana are retarded.  I don’t think I can say this enough.

After the turn-around from Cajun hell, we got back on the main road I-10 and got the correct exit this time.  When we stopped to get gas we noticed something.  Everyone looked inbred and cajun.  Louisiana is creepy.  Then we went to the KFC buffet.  I thought it was pretty gross.  Then I saw a black person and then I realized that only the white people looked retarded.  The black people look quite normal and healthy.  Must be why they’re the best musicians around here.  They’re not cousin-fuckers.  So after that we hit the road again and managed to navigate through a spaghetti bowl of tiny highways teetering over vast and endless swamps as far as the brain could imagine, and I was certain I was going to run over an alligator.  I didn’t.  I want to know how the hell you build a road in a swamp, now that I’ve actually seen a swamp.  Joey says they use a lot of mud, but I don’t know where they’d get the mud for it.  I hate Louisiana roads.  They’re retarded.  Also… You’ll notice that in Louisiana, towns are called corps and counties are called parishes.  They’re retarded.  So we finally made it to Josh’s house.

Josh is Joey’s friend from College.  Josh is from Texas.  He’s pretty normal.  He’s actually pretty cool.  He lives in Thibodeux.  Josh has these concerts at his house for singers and songwriters and bands from all over and all kinds of music.  He calls his house the Secret Hideout.  His color scheme in his house is very cool.  his kitchen is blue I think, his living room is green, his bedroom is red, and bathroom is tan.  I found out the color of the bathroom because of that nasty KFC.  I was all pooty.  We met Josh and got to knwo him pretty good and then we hooked up all the music gear to practice and we played a few songs to test the levels and then we learned one of his songs because his opening act couldn’t show up and he was going to play instead.  Then just as we decide to have some dinner, people start showing up for the gig thing.  I met John and Clay and Mark, and some other people I don’t remember.

John brought Popeye’s.  I avoided the chicken, but decided a roll would be nice.  Turns out Josh had cooked up some curry the night before and had enough leftovers for all of us.  I had that and jasmine rice, and it was goooooood.  I love real food.  It was even better with a Popeye’s biscuit.  The only thing we forgot was our set list so we had to type it up real fast before teh show.  Like most printers, Josh’s has the retarded tendancy to not want to print black ink.  We printed it in green.  Anyway, the show started and Josh gave us some great songs, Joey backed him up on clarinet for one piece and then he busted out the full band as a sort of introduction to Phoenix Saga on the piece we practiced only twice earlier that day.  It went over great.  Then he introduced us and we blew thier farkin pants off with some kickass Texas rock.  Our set was one of the best we’ve done in a long time.  We closed out with Coasting and John got up and started dancing like a maniac, which is also a first.  John is cool.  Then Clay was up for his gig, since he was the one who attracted the crowd.  He was a phenominal guitar player.  The singing could use some help, but I think that’s because he writes lyrics way out of his range.  He even played a tune on mandolin.  Clay is also cool.  I’m glad we were surrounded by cool people at the Secret Hideout.

After the show we passed out CDs of our music and John even bought a T-shirt.  What can I say?  I like the guy.  Then Dwan, Josh’s wife, gets home from work.  it was too bad she missed the show but we ended up playing for her afterwards anyway.  I talked to the guy from Jamaica and he was also cool.  I liked his accent.  Black people have the smoothest skin… anyway.  to be continued…