Tour Day 2--San Francisco??

As said in the last entry, I was beyond hammered the night before...The term as it is so affectionately called is "Knizner-ized"...So I awake in the van in the hotel parking garage totally disorientated and didn't have a clue where I was at...Luckily Dennis stayed in the van as well...If no one was there, I would have freaked...Now, another problem surfaces...I had to piss like a racehorse...So I walk around the garage, then into the hotel...No public bathroom and the attendant was no where to be found. And I had no idea what room the Hod guys were in...So I pull a Seinfeld and go in the garage...And unlike the show, I did not get caught...

We figure things out and got my shower on, which helped somewhat...I was still out of it...I had no idea what time it was, even though I am wearing a watch and have a phone. I was also in Central Time Zone mode too...

Here is the other problem...Hod is all accounted for...What about the rest of Cardiac and Gravehill...and Matt? We were all scattered around the greater Portland area...

Finally, everyone meets up...Time for Denny's! Yeah!! However, not to be...it was packed and we didn't want to wait...So we hit the road.

It took forever to get out of Portland...We were following Thorgrimm and I guess their Robo Fuhrer (GPS) was not cutting the mustard...Lots of one ways, street closings for 4th of July festivities, etc.

We finally find the Interstate and head towards the gig...We find a Denny's about a half hour out and stopped there...Not as packed as the other one. Lots of "are you guys in a band?" questions when we roll in...So we all order and wait...then eat...And you guessed it, my order was wrong...I wanted the Grand Slam...Two words...Easy, right? Nope...Pepe the waiter brought me the All American Slam...At least my eggs were the right way...I gave my pancakes to Abominator because, simply, I don't like the fuckers...

Ok, so that took an hour and a half...

We hit the road once again...Now, this was probably the worst run of the whole trip...See, we had Bodybag and Matt riding along with us. Hod did remove a row of seats when they got the van back in Texas. So lets do a headcount...

Hod=5
Cardiac=4
Gravehill Memebers=2

A 15 Passenger Van with a row removed...Yes, we were sitting on each other basically...Not to mention that Matt and I were very tired, out of it, hung over, and just plain cranky...Dennis was driving and had control of the stereo essentially and (no offense) listens to a lot of shitty, BrOOtAl death metal...Matt dubbed the van "The Blast Beat Express"...It is funny now, but it sure wasn't then...My band mates know this, now you all do, but I hate listening to really any forms of death metal when driving...

We make our way through Oregon...Lots of great scenery, that's for sure...I napped on and off. We made a stop for gas at some point, and here comes the Bad News Thorgrimm (Sorry...had to use that one again)

We are running extremely late and there is a chance we may not make the show...We had like 8 hours to go still...This was not good...The show was to start at 9pm...It was like 4:30...Shit...

We gun it, but still had to stop a few times. A stop that stands out was this private resort right on a lake with mountains...Dennis had to shit or something...So we beg to use the facilities...they reluctantly let us in...2 super hotties were walking around the lot with dental floss bikinis...And of course, Jim did not have his video camera at the ready...Bad Grindhead!!

Back on the road, we continue to gun it...Northern Cali is very awesome to look at too...Here in Illinois, us flatlanders see nothing...So this was a treat...

And apparently, you can't bring in cherries or other fruit into Cali...there is a checkpoint where they ask if you have that stuff. Checkpoints are never good for a band...Not to mention an overloaded van. But the checkpoint guy was cool as hell...He asked us if we had anything (fruit) and started laughing...

"Ah, you guys are in a band...don't seem like the fruit type...Beer and Chips is more your thing! Have a nice day and safe travels!"

Well, it is now 9pm...Officially late...We still keep pushing...Thorgrimm finally got ahold of the promoter and he just said, keep on going and you'll make it...Ok, so that helped...No local openers on this show, which kind of sucked because they could have helped delay things...

So we get to the club around 10:30...We made it!! We unload the gear at a record pace thanks to help from some friends of Gravehill...Fatalist gets up there and kills it! They sounded great today! We were up next. The stage was small and it was kind of cramped, which always sucks...We move around a lot, and so there was no room to move...

Now, remember, I am totally sober (probably a first) and we played a shortened set due to time constraints...I was on a mission due to my terrible performance the night before...I think I made up for this time...We were loud and sounded great (or so I thought)

I did not watch Hod or Gravehill that night, but they sounded good. I was running merch for all the bands, I was even more tired after the set, and I just wanted to sit down and relax...

Pretty decent crowd there though...I got to meet my online friends Ranarchy and Jose, both who are awesome artists...I had to apologize to them because I was ran so ragged throughout the day, I was not the most social person...They understood which was cool...

Both days, we sold quite a bit of merch and was running out...Not good...We put in an emergency shirt order that we would pick up in LA to get us through until Pittsburgh...

We hang out a bit after the show and break down everything...It was a whirlwind day for sure...The Gravehill dudes headed back to LA while Hod and us stayed put in San Fran...We crashed at some dude's place in Oakland...Carl (Hod), David, and I opted to crash in the van...Boy, starting to like this van now...That's a lie, but I wanted some peace and quiet and that was the place...

Woke up early and wandered around the area...Found a BK and got a breakfast sandwich...I was up and wanted to get moving...Problem is, no one else shares my same internal clock...So I had to wait and smoked a lot of damn cigarettes...Adam and Jim went to get something to eat and I told them where to go, but they still got lost coming back...Seriously folks, the BK was 2 blocks away...

Once everyone was up and moving, we split out...LA was only like a 5 hour drive, so this would be a breeze compared to the day before...

And I wanted to drink again!!!!