LOST CAUSES TOUR JOURNAL 2005

Here it is kids. The infamous tour journal written by your very own Curtis Rofo. The parts in red are from yours truly (Trevor) so don't pay no attention to those. Eventually I'll link pictures to some certain spots, but for now...here ya go. Direct all comments or complaints towards Curtis cuz I don't wanna hear it.

Sunday, December 20, 2004

Prologue

I just got back to my apartment today after the longest five-hour drive I have ever ridden from Phoenix, AZ. The Lost Causes ten day “Fuck This Town, We’re Outta Here” Tour 2004 is has officially subsided, and it feels nice being home. The 2-day rule is in full effect now, this 2-day rule states that after each tour we all agree not to see or talk to each other for at least two days since we had to basically eat, sleep, drink, play, and drive all in each other’s faces and inside one another’s comfort zones for the past week and some change.

In many ways this tour was a success with some good times and better shows. In many ways it was a blubbering failure with some big fucking disappointments. We’ve paid some high dues. Well, not so much “us,” but rather our bank accounts, stomachs, and livers’. But as soon as the last note rang out of the air just before we unplugged for the last time at our last show, we knew for a fact that this tour was far better than the last. We now know that all four of us can get along and not get pissy and ass-holey toward each other even under the grimmest, most stressful situations. I guess I’ll fill in all concerned with what I can remember from our ten-day odyssey.

Friday, December 10, 2004

Elliot Road – Busted hoses – Jose – Tacos and gangsters

Well, where to start? I suppose I’ll just start at the beginning… We all finished our last finals at school yesterday. Yesterday was the day we left for our first show, which was supposed to be in Phoenix. We all loaded up like excited little sardines into our great new van with all our equipment. Once we get on the road everything is hoity toity and sloppy good. We’re all laughing, and getting along laying down the ground rules of driving arrangements and Trevor’s cigarette-break circulation, there was bueno ju-ju in the air for all to take in. (Or was that Trevor’s peanut butter gas?)

We start pulling into Phoenix, AZ, sixteen miles outside of town to be exact. I’m in the back captain’s chair, in my own damn world with my headphones on, falling in-and-out of sleep. I open my eyes and see Trevor (driving the van) and Tick (riding shotgun) looking at each other with confused looks on their faces’, and I’m trying to read their lips over my headphones but all I can make out is the words:

“What was that noise?” “I don’t know…”

Oh fucking nice…Trevor’s pulling over.

Apparently the radiator had busted a leak, for lack of a better term, and it was between 7-9 PM and cold. After a failed attempt to fix the problem ourselves with duct tape, we called a tow truck. The towing place said that it was going to take a few minutes. Fine. We loaded into the van and watched some PBS special on our TV.

We looked and noticed we were near the Elliot Road exit.

Two hours later, still no tow truck. Well the show is officially cancelled (although we weren’t sure if this show was confirmed, but that’s a whole other, less-interesting story.)

Just as were about to call the tow truck company again, a tow comes pulling up. The fellow that stepped out could hardly speak intelligible English. Come to find out, he wasn’t the tow truck we were waiting on. He offered us a deal to get towed to the nearest Pep Boys for $75. We said yes. All the while we’re negotiating, Trevor’s looking over the busted ass radiator, trying to figure out exactly how much it might cost us or whatever, for all I know he was just staring into space. But Trevor was the most “automobile-savvy” of all of us so good thing he was there.

We took up with this tow dude, but not after a took down as much info as I could from guy’s truck. He came off at first as a bit shady. He wanted to see the insurance info and we had no idea why. We loaded in his truck with Tick sitting in Trevor’s and my lap. (We made Sam sit next to Jose.) We had no idea where he was taking us or if we would live to see where we were going. You could slice the paranoia in the air with a knife…a big knife.

Jose started talking about the “Fucking Border Patrol!” and asking us if we had a lot of Border Patrol in Cruces. “Fucking Border Patrol!” It was so funny because he started telling us how, “All these other tow companies don’t give a fuck about service.” He seemed pissed that we had to wait as long as we did. He was on our side, or at least we hoped he was. 16 miles and a few sleeping limbs later, we arrived at Pep Boys. Of course it was closed because it was God knows what hour. He told us it was a safe street to sleep on and there was a nice Mexican restaurant nearby. We paid Jose and thanked him. Jose was our savior.

We pushed the van into a parking space near a repair dock, or whatever the hell it’s called and went to go eat. The restaurant was La Salsita or Mi Salsita, no matter, because it was some of the best Mexican food I had ever eaten. The smell was so good, I got some carnitas and Tick grabbed some asada. Good God. It was this little hole in the wall with an outdoor patio to eat. We sat and laughed about how shitty the tour had started, but we all figured the van would cost a reasonable amount to fix and we could still make our Ventura, CA show. After food we walked back to the van and piled in. It was starting to get really cold outside at this point.

Sam sat in the passenger seat with a hospital blanket, Tick and Trevor got the back captain’s seats in their sleeping bags. I opted for the very back with the equipment. I had to sleep with my legs and body at a straight 90 degree angle since my legs went up Tick’s cab. It had been such a long day, I grabbed my headphones, put on some Merle Haggard and opened the lid to the Jack Daniel’s bottle. I chugged and chugged and guzzled but I never felt drunk. So what did I do to compensate?…Drank more of course. As I fell asleep with Merle in my ears and whisky in my belly, I dreamed of a more hopeful tomorrow.

Saturday, December 11, 2004

Early hangover – Eddie – Con artists – Two steps back

I leaned up and took the bandana off my eyes that I had tied around my eyes to keep the sun out. The sun was a lot brighter than it should have been and my head hurt a lot more than it did when I went to sleep. Oh yeah…I got really drunk the night before but didn’t realize it cause I wasn’t moving or talking. Fuck! My stomach was twisting around too, so this was nice, I get to start the day off with a bitch-kitty of a hangover. We spilled out of the van around 7:30 AM, when Pep Boys opened. We must have looked pretty that morning too. Me and Sam ate peanut butter sandwiches while Tick ate some expired Lemon muffins or Lemon rocks or whatever they were. Trevor went in to see if we could get this van fixed pronto.

As we sat sleepy eyed and cold in the waiting room, a big fellow named Eddie came in and sat next to us. Which was surprising, because I’m sure we looked real inviting. Eddie turned out to be our angel of light. He talked to us for a couple hours about music and other things, he helped us pass the depressing time and put us all in a good mood. He was a great guy. (Thanks Eddie.) We then found out the good news, they could fix the van for only $100. You would have thought that we had just won the lottery, we got all excited and yelped a few times like little girls, happily we shelled out the bones and grabbed extra coolant and oil. The tour would go on and we would make the Ventura show easily. Or would we?

It was my turn to drive, so I started the van. The van seemed like it was in worse shape than it was when Jose hauled us there. I could barely leave the parking lot. The van wasn’t idling and it was just running like ass in general. We ran back inside to see what was up, the dude told us there was carburetor problems but it would make it to California and back. It was, at least, running, so we took off for a gas station – cutting our loses and willing to take our chances. After we filled up, the van wouldn’t start. FUCK! We decided to go back to Cruces and maybe borrow a couple of cars, this piece of garbage wasn’t gonna make it to California, and even if it did, we didn’t want to risk having to deal with getting stuck on the side of the road again. [Never buy an old van from a German, for full details, ask one of us.]

16 miles from Pep Boys, in the exact same place but on the other side of the highway from where we first broke down, Trevor turns around from the steering wheel, “It seems to be running fine now, I say we should maybe just take it Ventura…” just as he says this we hear a loud pop and hiss.

All four of us were livid. We screamed, we cussed, we threatened violence to all of the Pep Boys employees children, we threw rocks…WE WERE STUCK AT THE SAME DAMN PLACE WE ORGINALLY BROKE DOWN! ELLIOT ROAD EXIT!

…This van story seems to be dragging out, so I’ll just give you the super Cliff’s notes version.

We got towed back to Pep Boys.

We demanded them fix the van and refund our money.

They said it was a head gasket and it wasn’t their fault that it busted again.

We knew we were fucked.

We knew we were gonna miss our show.

We had to sell the van.
Fuck!

We sold it to the Pep Boys’ manager’s dad for $400. That’s 400 reasons enough to snag a rental and gas cash back home. How sad. But we were somewhat happy, I mean we weren’t stuck in Phoenix with no van to sleep in. Sam, Tick, and I sat in the Pep Boys parking lot eating peanut butter sandwiches while Trevor negotiated with the buyer. We then decided that we HAD to press on with the tour. We HAD to. For all that was holy, we had to buck up. Even if it was as our sacrifice to the Gods of Rock and Roll, (and not to piss off anymore people than we had to.) If we didn’t, we would be pussies, and plus we couldn’t afford to cancel more shows. We drove back to Cruces in a big new SUV. We were almost out of money already and hadn’t played a show one, folks.

So we all went back to our respective houses to sleep all this shit off, eat, and get a last shower in. We got to sleep in our own beds, but there was still anxiety.

Sunday, December 12, 2004

Why Sam’s Mom is our saviour – Drunk behind the wheel – Sam’s Sitdown

Now if anyone gets the MVP award for this tour it would be Sammy Boy’s Mom. She lent us her car to finish off the tour, Tick put up her car too. We tried to convince Trevor to let us use his car, but he kept saying with a straight face that his Taurus was in “just as bad of shape as the van.” I guess we were supposed to believe that. We didn’t.

So because of Sam’s mom and her kindness, we would try again the next morning.

When I walked in my apartment I had discovered that my roommate had left the shower on full blast for the two days I had been gone. The apartment was a sauna of hot shower water. The floor was flooded and the walls had began to mold pretty bad. So after dealing with this van crap and living at Pep Boys I had to grab a bottle of bleach and clean my entire bathroom and dehumidify my apartment. If I had not come home that night my apartment and all my things would have been ruined as the hot shower water slowly turned my apartment into a rainforest. I guess every black cloud has that silver lining. A silver lining that nearly left Lost Causes’ ass stranded forever at Pep Boys.

(“…and their fate is still unknown…”)

Smelling of bleach and anger, I laid in bed, grabbed a beer and a bottle of Nyquil and hibernated for 13 hours before I had to get up to get back between the stripes.


We grabbed shit load of beer at a gas station and looked for a rest stop to crash at in California. There was a sign for a rest stop so we decided to stop there, as we hit the blinker to turn off, we see a sign that said that we were like 3 or 4 miles from a prison and to “not pick up hitchhikers.” Tick got a bit nervous and the next rest stop was like 40 miles away or something, so I told her we should just sleep there…it would be funny. Besides we all had our knives, and in a couple of hours we would be drunk enough to not even care.

So we pulled over and I think it’s fair to say we were all a little nervous being so close to some fucking prison to sleep, so we crack some brewskus to drink the nervousness away. We all sat in one car and got drunk. I put away about four beers before Tick or Trevor finished their second beers and Trevor cussed me for being an alcoholic. I explained to him that just because I drink like a fish, doesn’t actually make me a fish. Then I think he cussed me for making an such a stupid analogy.

Then I took a picture of Sam using the facilities.

We got in our sleeping bags and passed out and slept pretty good in the cars.

Monday, December 13, 2004

…Asian Pizza ♠ Curtis gets saucy ♠ Why Renae rocks…

I woke up with an 8-beer headache (moderate, not day-killing) and went into the public water closet to brush my teeth. As soon as I walked in, every jake on Interstate 10 had to piss it seemed like. So I’m standing with toothbrush in hand trying to use the sink and Douche, Douchey, and Doucheiest are rushing and crowding me for the sink. I said “fuck it!” and brushed my teeth at the cars.

So after we get back on the road and grab some food at Denny’s, (for further details concerning the Denny’s restroom aftermaths –ask Trevor and Sam) we headed out for Downey, CA. Tick put on the Red Hot Chili Peppers as we made our way to the city.

So we find the place we’re playing at, called the The Anarchy Library. Pretty breezy place I suppose. But I needed more water. At this point I was still so dehydrated that I didn’t know which end was up, and I had put away so much water at Denny’s I didn’t know what was going on.

We all crowded around this convenience store midday and drank water and/or Gatorade to rejuvenate. (Gatorade seemed to be Tick’s drink of choice.) Trevor finally ran into some money when we had to book it back to Cruces and was buying shit to eat and drink at every store we passed. (Slightly exaggerating but not by much.) Sam didn’t pipe in about it, but Tick did. I just ragged him about saving money for an amp, as always. We DID have three bread loaves and a fallout shelter’s worth of peanut butter to survive on. He’d just chew his doughnuts and chips and be passive aggressive as always.

We headed to Los Angeles to hang out at Vintage Tattoo and whatnot. Plus, me and Trevor we’re all excited about showing Sam the “Bah-jillion beer brand” store. The walk was a lot further than I remembered from the March 04 tour. We got there and we snooped around for a few minutes. I have a love-hate relationship with that place. I love to see all the different brews, but I want to buy all of’em and get all depressed and sad when I leave with nada. [Baba cracked a joke that we drove 800 miles for a liquor store. I'd like to say it wasn't true...but then I'd be lying.]

On our walk back to Vintage we got a call from Renae, the singer from All or Nothing H.C. and she was wondering if we had made it into town yet. She asked where were we, but none of us could give her an intelligible answer… we didn’t fucking know? We knew we were in Los Angeles. She knew where we were playing that night and said she’d see us there, and if not, she promised to let us stay at her apartment. This was nice.

So when we made it back to Downey for the show we went walking for some food before the show. A block over we spotted this little hole-in-the-wall called SICILIAN GUY’S PIZZA. Sounds good right? Well it was. But there wasn’t a Sicilian one even sitting OUTSIDE the place. It was all Asian folks. At first I was apprehensive, because I never heard of such a thing. Asian Pizza? Turns out these guys knew what they were doing. Good stuff, good stuff. Plus, we had the run of the place. There was no one else there, also there was just enough seats for out smelly asses. We watched Elima-Date and ate Asian pizza. Oh shit, we got a show to play!

We fatty-flop out to the Anarchy Library and start to set up. We play the show, pretty good. Most of the audience sat at the bar and cheered between songs. But there was one guy in a trench-coat kicking around and occasionally dancing to a song all solo-style on the floor. After the show the people were nice enough.

Me and Tick got in an drunken argument over why it was stupid for me to ask who was a more influential band IN GENERAL? The Clash or Black Sabbath? Or something along those lines, to spare another fucking argument I’m just going to say for the record: I don’t remember what was going on or what I said. I got pissed when Tick questioned what I was saying for some reason (gin and tonic tends to do that to a body). So I went and pouted at the bar alone. The bartender-lady made me three double Jolly-Rancher shots for free and toasted me figuratively and literally. I don’t know what was in them, but they knocked me on my ass. On the third shot, I think I toasted these three other guys watching a basketball game on TV to the Los Angeles Clippers. I don’t know why, but they thought it was great! If I remember correctly it was something like, “Heeer’sh to za Clipperrrz! Fuck the Lakuhz! Yeah!” (Translated: Here’s to the Clippers. Fuck the Lakers!”) They howled.

We made our way to Renae’s apartment. I played with her exercise medicine ball, all rolling on the floor and chatting about all kinds of random stuff. She let us shower…ahhh…We all chilled in the living room till we all decided it was time to turn in for the night. We went to sleep that night, optimistic.

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

…Tick’s 2nd home ♠ Hollywood ♠ Dylan helps out, again…

But not as optimistic as when we woke up and found out that Renae was going to make us spaghetti. Oh thank you God for this! We watched cable TV and waited like patient little children for our food. It was so fucking good. The plates were so huge, Tick didn’t come close to finishing her plate, so me, Sam and Trevor, like este blood sniffing sharks killed every bit of spaghetti in the living room.

We were still full that night.

We drove to Los Angeles and checked out Tick’s old stomping grounds and hit up In and Out Burger and Amoeba Records on Sunset Blvd. We all loaded up on shit we didn’t need. I finally got “Group Sex” by the Circle Jerks. (I just said I finally got group sex. Ha!) That place is sensory overload for a music aficionado, I’m telling yous.

The streets had all these crazy Christmas lights everywhere. It was an epileptics nightmare.

We called up Trevor’s old homie, Dylan, up (or over or whatever) in Irvine for a place to crash. We sat smacking burgers and making fun of all the yahoo Hollywood jakes that walked by. Good times.

That’s like the third or fourth time that Dylan has bailed us out when we needed a place to sleep. He gets two gold stars in my book. The next morning he even showed us this awesome breakfast place called the “Omelette Coalition” or the “Omelette Parlor” or somethingruther.

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

…Vomit sidewalks ♠ Duct taped faces ♠ Lost Causes almost gets whacked…

The drive to San Luis Obispo, CA the next evening took forever. Driving into the hills and what not was so damn boring. The drive went on and on and on. When we got to The Dwellling, where we were playing, Tick and I beat Sammy Boy and Trevor by almost a half hour.

As we were loading in what gear that we had waiting for Trevor and Sammy Boy, some kid and his father were walking down the sidewalk and the kid straight up puked his lungs out all over the sidewalk. Tick looked at me and grimaced. It was disgusting. What made it worse was that the dad grabbed the kid and just kept on walking like nothing had happened. So this huge pile of puke just stews there on the sidewalk all night long. (I for one was sort of impressed; it was a lot of vomit for such a small kid.) Pretty vile.

Well, the Cosby kids, (Trevor and Sammy Boy) finally arrive and we get our business loaded in. We play a rocking show. The kids were into it and we really got into it. At the end of the show Sammy Boy kicks the crap out of his drums sending them flying, Trevor tee’d off with his bass sending a drum cymbal flying. Next thing I see is Sammy raising another one of his cymbals and slinging it to the floor and he ended up slicing one of Trevor’s bass cables. Which was also impressive...

The next band went on called Manifest Destiny. They were really good. They had two lead singers who switched back and forth from vocals to guitar. I had a couple of brews by now and was feeling nice and toasty, tending to the merch and whatnot, when I looked up and saw Sammy Boy in the pit. He had duct tape over his eyes and mouth and was going ape shit blindly kicking and dancing. I also think at this point he had shed his shirt, which just added to the hilarity. It was one of the most damned funny things I’ve ever seen in my entire life. I don’t know why.

We met some pretty cool kids outside the place as well. Some chick was screaming, “I need sex!!!” and tugging at her underwear in the street. I was inside during all of this, but I heard it was pretty inspiring.

After the show we got a place to crash.

A place with hidden knives…

and axes…

and spell books…

and transvestites…

…and loud creeks under dark train trestles where you can’t see or hear anything and people don’t think twice about pulling a Mag-Lite flashlight out in your general direction. A Mag-Lite that look dangerously similar to gun when you are in the dark woods and nervous.

But we were happy we could get a place to sleep.

The next day our new friend made us omelettes. Trevor was being picky, but didn’t hesitate to get a plate chock-a-blocked full of eggs, onions, and mushrooms. He proceeded to eat about 2 bites and tried to tell us he was full…when we all know that Trevor has the eating habits of a six year old and “doesn’t like onions,” when all the while he had plenty opportunity to tell guy not to put any in. So when we left, what does he do…? He buys some gas station doughnuts (or something of the kind) to eat.



It’s laughable.

Thursday, December 16, 2004

…Morro Bay ♠ Trevor’s parents ♠ “Motherfucker’s got the poster”…

After we got out of San Luis Obispo, and replaced Trevor’s perfectly sliced cable, we thought a scenic route to Oakland would do us good after we just escaped the clutches of certain death, (for complete story ask any of us when you got a half hour to kill) so we went to Morro Bay.

It was nice and soothing to see the ocean and birds and la-dee-da-dee-da...

So, we were all ready to head to Oakland, when it came to our attention that the guy booking our show fell off the face of the earth…Long story short, we decided to nix Oakland since we had no idea where we would be going once we got there and it was a ways out of our way to drive if things didn’t turn out.

So…thanks for the help guy, wherever you are.

We kicked around San Diego for a while. Trevor showed us around his hometown and showed us where the cool kids hung out. We went to a few stores to snoop around and ended up wandering into this record store, Off the Record. We had a large time looking at old vinyl and such. They had a load of Merle Haggard vinyl that I goggled at for a while. As we were leaving, something caught Sam’s eye. In the window they had a poster of the original Giger designed cover to Dead Kennedy’s “Frankenchrist” album. Sammy was livid and ecstatic all at the same time. “Motherfucker’s got the POSTER! Look at it! It’s all sun bleached! Oh ma… they got the poster!” It was great.

We never did get a chance to go back.

We went to crash at Trevor’s parents place. We drank beers and they bought us fried chicken, it was splendid. Many thanks for the food.

We also got into some heated discussion over California politics that had to be extinguished fast, (the conversation, not the politics). We all were a few beers deep and Trevor’s parents were swilling SoCo like there wouldn’t be any SoCo left tomorrow. Actually I think Trevor was nursing his second beer, Tick had a few, I had about six or seven (judging by my empties the next day), and Sam was knocking back soda like no other. So we all were fuzzy headed and voices were raised about God knows what and God knows who… I remember we stopped talking about politics (which none of us agree on, anyhow) and started talking about something we all could agree on: How much the San Diego PD sucks at life. (Not that I know first hand, but Trevor, Roger, and Connie told us some shit that was astonishing.) “Shoot everybody but the bad guys.”

As everyone passed out that night, Sammy Boy and myself watched Family Guy and Aqua Teen Hunger Force and slammed one last beer a piece.

Friday, December 17, 2004

…Nazis & other assorted Mo-mo’s ♠ Selling our bodies ♠ Decapitations…

I think we ate at Denny’s before we left town. I could be wrong. But I do remember convincing Sam and Trevor to take shots of pancake syrup from those little shot glasses they give you.

So the next show we had was in Tujunga, CA. We made our way to this crazy little place and found out we were playing in this Mason Lodge that they convert into a venue of sorts at night for the kids. As we were setting up the guy who runs the show came up to us and laid down the house rules…

No cussing on stage.
No drunkenness on stage.
No encouraging circle pits…and finally…
(as he looks at Tick) No taking off your clothes.

HA! I thought it was funny. If anyone is going to be guilty of showing some nakedness on stage, my first guess would be Trevor. He’s done it before folks.

They told us that this place in general had a pretty big Nazi/Bonehead population, which was funny cause Trevor was wearing his “crucified skin” shirt and I was wearing a “Public Enemy” shirt. If they showed up to the show there would be some words exchanged fo’ sho’.

Regardless, Sammy and me make our way to a pay phone down the street. Sam finds out that his family just got done eating green chile and rice and I had some chickadee hang up on me cause the phone kept cutting out. So it was all around depressing phone conversations for the both of us. We walked back to the Mason lodge with our heads hung low.

Eventually we play. The show was intense cause it was nothing but teenage girls and their metal head boyfriends. I think I told the crowd at one point, “Sorry, we don’t do Slayer covers, but I can sing you ‘Dead Skin Mask’!” And then I think we started playing “Fate.” Ha! The irony is immense. (See lyrics to "Fate" )

All the girls swarmed to Tick’s side of the stage. Actually, that was the only people at the stage. All the dudes were in the back. They (the girls) all were busting up laughing because either they had a puppy-love with Tick, or they thought I was funny, all running around and jumping all over the place. Either way. It was crazy.

Then the band after us got on stage. My land, they were simply precious. I won’t say the name of the band, but just think of a cross between New Kids on the Block and Story of the Year, mixed with a singer that reminded me of a Avril Lavigne-tie-wearing-guitar playing emo kid trying his hardest to be Michael Jackson. I’m talking choreographed moves and everything. At one point one the the dudes in the band told the crowd, “Who wants a free shirt?!” So some dude gets up and runs to the stage. The guy in the band goes, “I’ll give you the shirt, but you have to stand by the stage for this next song.” The dude got pissed and went back to the back of the room and fucking dissed the guy so hard, we all were laughing. Like I said, these guys were precious.

We weren’t having much luck selling merch. We sold a couple cd’s, but we needed gas money. (Little did we know that we were not going to get paid at the end of the night) So we started selling kisses for $1. This girl comes up and wants to buy a kiss. We give her a choice of who she wants to kiss. She looks at me and Sam and says that “she doesn’t want to choose.” So I jump up and plant one on her. She screamed and handed me the dollar.

It was precious as well…

At the end of the night we’re all standing outside the place by the cars, eating peanut butter and trying to figure out where we are going to sleep. I spot a group of kids who were at the show and me and Sammy Boy go over to make friends and see if we can’t find a safe place to sleep. Turns out all the kids still live at home and a few of them were squatters anyhow. This one 12 year old squatter kid tells us a few places that he sleeps, but all his places, he tells us, involved us having to “look out for tweekers,” and “keep your head up cause they’ve been finding a lot of decapitated heads over there,” and whatnot. Nice…

We decided to call Dylan in Irvine again.

Thank you Dylan…I’ll dance at your wedding.

Saturday, December 18, 2004

…Old friends ♠ Free beer ♠ “What do you got to do tomorrow, breathe?”…

So we head back out to San Diego. We are going to be playing at a house party, ha! The best shows ever. So we’re sitting in Dylan’s parking lot in Irvine, about to leave, and we call up Nikolai, a good friend of Trevor’s, to get the details about this party. He proceeds to tell us that he’s having a “Lord of the Rings” party at his house all day long and there’s free beer and pizza for us. Me and Tick look at each other and take a deep breathe…because…we were expecting a party. You know with drunken whores and alcohol flying everywhere and loud obnoxious music and cops breaking down the door and freaky things going on everywhere and… (well, maybe that’s the party I, myself had in mind) but it’s a given that Tick and I are not “Lord of the Ring” nerds…we’re a different brand of nerd I suppose.

But turns out that THAT’S not the party we are playing. We’re playing at Nik’s girlfriend’s place.

Oh…thank God.

So we make our way to Nik’s nerd-party, (I say that as a term of endearment, I promise) and settle in for a few hours of booze, food, and Frodo. Hmm.

Trevor disappeared for an hour or so talking on the phone, Nik’s cat thought Sammy Boy was a jungle gym, and me and Tick started drinking…heavily. We started building our own version of the damned “Two Towers” out of our empties. It was funny because there was so many people in the room watching the movies that we were sitting behind this couch, and the beer towers were visible over the couch. It was damned impressive.

After a bit we headed to Ashley, Nik’s girlfriends house.

We set up and end up playing to the guys who were at the “Lord of the Rings” Party. Dylan showed up and we all kind of ended up in the basement sitting in a circle, boozing and talking about old times…well we listened to Trevor, Nik, and Dylan talk about old times, which was pretty entertaining.

Everyone there was cool as hell. Except this one random hero made some snide remark about one of Tick’s exceptionally sacred tats. She wanted to beat the living piss out of the bastard, but…I think he left.

After everyone left, we (Lost Causes) all sat in the living room in our sleeping bags, drinking, and having an all around good time. Except Trevor. He sat on the floor with this sad look on his face. We bitched at him to drink but he refused. “What do you got to do tomorrow Trevor? Breathe?” We bullyragged him pretty hardcore. Turns out he needed to puke. Ha! I took his picture right afterward.

What’s funny is, I don’t think Trevor drank all that much.

But us on the other hand…gone.

Sam was so loose, he ended up eating a mouthful of flour. Yes…flour. It was so funny a think I tore some stitches laughing. He would cough and a huge cloud of flour would engulf his head. I’m laughing right now thinking about it.

Sunday, December 19, 2004

…Same old Sid ♠Jack Daniels souvenir ♠No more to say …

So we took off to Phoenix. Last show. Long long drive.

When we got there we sat in the Jughead’s bar all evening waiting to play. We had a cocktail or two while waiting… Sid’s (Jughead’s owner) the shit. We watched “Jackass: The Movie” on the TV two and half times that evening inside the bar.

We got up to play, and the crowd was really cool as always. It was open mic night and we cut our set short to let the people get their shot to play. Ends up they want us to play MORE! So we play “Au H2O A-No-Go” again and played “Another Round.”

Jughead’s is a great place to play and hang out. If any of you reading this are in Phoenix you should definitely hit it up. They have one of the best jukeboxes I’ve ever run across too.

So we take off, and I disappeared somewhere for a bit…I don’t know what happened, but we got separated. Its all a blur. [Curtis is full of shit. He knows damn well what happened, ask one of us for the full details...cochina]

But after we found each other I realized that we had scored a place to crash at this really nice, interesting girl’s apartment. Her name was Jonnabah. She was American Indian and told us all kinds of interesting things about her culture and her people. We were all really into her stories. She let us listen to some local bands that she was helping out, and they were really good.

We were swigging Jack Daniels that night, and before we left the next day, we slapped a LOST CAUSES sticker on the bottle and we all signed the bottle as a thank you gift.

When we woke up the next day, Tick and I stumbled out of her apartment and left Trevor and Sammy Boy. We offered to drive our new friend to work that day and we hit the highway back to Cruces straight after.

Tick loaded up on Corn Nuts and Gatorade as always, and I grabbed some water and a cup of coffee…Ahh back home to Cruces.

Now we just had to find the Interstate…cochina.

Epilogue

I know I probably botched some things chronologically in here somewhere, and I know all of this is from my point of view, so take it with a grain of salt. I have taken the liberty of deleting some of the events in this confession to protect the not-so-innocent…

…mainly myself.…

…maybe I deserve what I get.

Thanks for taking the time.

Curtis Rofo (L.C.S.)

12/04