Well I went on tour, through Olympia-a-a-a-a-a-a . . .

and everyone's the same.

No but seriously, we drove into Olympia and I couldn't understand what Courtney Love had been bitching about. It's beautiful and everything smells like trees. True, there are very very VERY strange people there who live in the mountains and come down just to drink fair trade coffee and throw graffiti on the walls, but it's hard to hold a grudge with such a lush place. Then again I don't live there and didn't attend Olympia High School so what do I know.

Tim and I rolled into town around noon and attended to our first order of business:


YES. It's really not all that exciting -- there's a Jack and the Box and a Bally's. Tim did not get a picture because he's way too mature.

Then we got some food and went to Evergreen State College, where we wandered around for about an hour looking for the radio station. Probably would have been better if we had gone any other time than on a Sunday during the summer, but when are we ever in Olympia? We slid something under an abandoned door with the hope that some kind person would pick it up when school's back in session. At least the campus was pretty.


Is this a college or a nature preserve?

Afterwards we went back to a park near the capitol building, where Tim promptly fell asleep.


I tried to make a video but my brain was off looking at the water.

Then we went to a cafe and Tim hopped on his laptop, and two homeless teens covered in paint asked if they could recharge their phones through his USB. He signed off with his usual "no problem" and sort of regretted it later on, but they were nice enough. I interviewed them about free-wall graffiti and how MJ was the Elvis of their . . . well, not their generation but the generation that came before them. Now I know how the older Gen X-er's felt when I was 16 and told them I didn't know who Molly Ringwald was. The circle continues.

The show at Le Voyeur . . .



The performers were cool folks.



We offered up our gear as the backline so everyone was The Hard To Get that night.


Existential Hero


The band Your Yellow Dress let me hop up on drums for a few songs


Josh Armistead

We went on last and did a very raw set to match the evening. We finally got around to our Sleater-Kinney cover of "Burn, Don't Freeze" -- we had to, we were in Olympia -- and I was ecstatic when one of the bar staff recognized the cover. Feels sort of like we consummated the band somehow. We still haven't figured out the live performance footage/pics situation so . . . here's us practicing it the day before in the car:




We slept at my friend Paul Rice's house in Seattle (thanks dude! btw, your toilet won't stop running) and we are now showered and ready to go to Vancouver, where we don't really know anyone, don't understand the money thing and won't be using our phones because it's too expensive. At least I finally figured out my passport situation.

-Melissa