Beantown and Shellfish Poo-poos.

I think I've developed a fear of a robotic kind.
What you can't tell from this picture is that these seemingly harmless toy cars are actually robotic killing machines. In the eyes of children... at least. What baffles me, is how hard it is to transform these "transformers" (aptly named) into their human like counterparts. Katy and I had a hell of a time of it. If we, as full grown adults, couldn't dissemble and reassemble these toys without breaking off parts... how could a kid (ages 8 and up) do it without frustration or even choking? I was relieved to find out that Dan had had a lot of trouble with these things also... and had already broken the parts that we thought we had broken in his attempts of trying to transform them (sorry Brian). Altogether, because of this, I now live in a state of constant paranoia fairly certain that the Volvo will turn into a robot while we're inside of it. Its not so much the fact that it would be a machine with its own thoughts and emotions that scares me... its mostly just being inside of it while the transformation process happens. Would we be crush? I don't know and I don't want to find out.

With a couple of games of cribbage under our belts and the failure of rant above... we took to the road so we could hit Boston. This promised to be quite a nostalgic experience... with both joyful memories and probably some very awkward ones. We drove into Boston and grabbed and parking spot and broke out our bikes for a little bit of a jaunt around the city. To my surprise, the idea of this scared the living daylights out of Katy (riding bikes around Boston, that is [which she now informs me made her "nervous"... so please excuse my misinformation])... her fears of falling into the Charles over took all thoughts of logic and enjoyment of such a beautiful day (1. we weren't even close to the Charles River and 2. it was frozen over so she wouldn't have been able to technically "fall into it"). Anyway...

Our first stop down memory lane was to Berklee College of Music so Katy could drop off a copy of her record to an old teacher of her's. And, true to the quintessential Berklee experience, we walked around the maze-like hallway system (see this sketch [sorry about the lack of audio... didn't have the rights to have some songs on it so they took it away]) just to make sure that it was still as retarded and confusing as it was before. It held true to me still.
We continued our adventure into Cambridge. We road from the MIT area all the way up to Harvard Square.... it was cold as hell... and I didn't have any gloves or a hat on. When we got off of out bikes Katy's hands were so cold that her finger had turned almost white. Apparently, we both have been too far south for the past year and 25 degrees freezes you to the bone at a surprisingly quick rate... pussies. I'm so ashamed.

After filling our bellies with some delicious mexican food (unfortunately, we didn't get to go to El Pelon because it burnt down [for the second time!]) we went to the All Asia (the ol' Berklee hang... a right of passage, you might say, into the playing circuit in Boston. You have to play the All Asia before you play anywhere else... in this case we couldn't get a gig anywhere else is Boston so we were forced to book the All Asia) to load in our stuff and to listen to the bands that were playing before us. This reminded me exactly why I didn't like playing the All Asia. On this particular night we were the closers... and all the bands before us were perfectly rehearsed, funky, glammed up, Berklee bands that I probably could have fallen asleep (or died) listening to because the arrangements and writing was so... boring. I won't get any further into this in hopes that I will curb my live music snobbery. So, we had a rocous crowd among us playing fooseball and pool while we played our quite folk songs... not ideal conditions but entertain/hilariouis (banter with drunken crowd members is always entertaining [Katy being asked to go home with a guy in the middle of the set and me trying to have an intelligible conversation with a supremely drunk woman about the French Revolution]) none-the-less. Also, what you have to understand, the room is tiny. Maybe you could fit 75 people in the room (fire code wise) but they still felt like they needed this:

Jumbo-TRON!

Not only is the place small but the screen was set up next to stage... so even if you were in a part of the room where you couldn't see the stage you wouldn't be able to see the screen anyway. Maybe, people like to see a low resolution version of real live to the actual thing... standing 10 feet away. I had to keep myself from laughing/staring everytime I looked over at Katy because it was right behind her and the sight was almost mesmerizing....................................

Despite the sketchyness of the gig... some great people came out: (sketch comedy/illustration greats) Tchadd Hanna, Dan Hanafin (for a second round!) and Bob Laing. (former co-worker) Emily Bickford. (former bandmate/helper) Joshua A. Russell. And Elizabeth O'Connor! Thanks guys for coming out!

We spent the night with Katy's friend Cory and wife Cynthia's floor with their cute little fat cat (whom I can't remember the name of) who liked to walk over and headbutt you in the middle of the night. I also put the bottom sleeping bag on backwards so the rolling clips were right underneath me... like sleeping on rocks.

The next morning we were off to Maine (but not after a delicious eggy concoction by Cory [thanks!] before we left) to take my hometown by storm! We were set to play at Skidompha Libary for what turned out to be an enthusiastic crowd of all ages! This was exciting...

This is my, "I'm going back to Maine" face. Very much like the, "I love meat" face.

Thanks to my Uncle for scrounging up (and running) sound equipment that night and thanks for everyone coming out... it was a lot of fun.

But what could have been even more exciting was seeing what my mom had up her sleave for Katy to eat! My mom (as many of you know) is a superb cookstress and went all out to feel Katy... even with her allergy to gluten! She made her gluten free pasta, sauce, apple pie, minestrone soup, bread... and lots of other things that I was, quite frankly, amazed about myself. She really went alllllll out. She even gave her e lesson on eating lobster and muscles!

Its all about the fingers (which is what she said) and claw crackers (she also said that).

I've got a good technique to consuming this bug of the sea but there are some old skool ways of doing things... as my mom's boyfriend Buzz clearly illustrates.
Left: Me (somewhat schooled), Katy (n00b/pwned)
Right: Buzz (FTW)

And all the while we had an onlooker who provided us with the most unlimited amount of sass that you could have at one sitting.... Miss Murphy.

Look at that sass... so much.

So, the past couple of days have been spent watching the History Channel, doing taxes and eating food....... but now its back on the road to Portland! Check back soon ya'll.

Cheers,
Luke