so…in case you didn't catch on from last night's post, i'm home. i'm slowly trying to remember the finer details of the tour and whatnot, but i'm reaizing that "lasting memories" and "drunk for two weeks straight" don't really go hand in hand…

now where did i leave off?

5/1 new york, ny @ brownie's
after our radio show at mit, we loaded the van up and got the hell out of dodge (err…boston). tired as hell, i drove most of the way from beantown to nyc. we switched drivers somewhere just outside of the big city (pronounced connecticut) and promptly got stuck in traffic. this was fine and dandy until we realized that the gas gauge was looking dangerously low. things cleared up once we got out of traffic and listened to "girls" by the beastie boys. amazing how one song can change your outlook on the day.

we rolled straight into brooklyn to ben's apartment to stretch our legs and bitch about how tired we were (especially considering that ben lives on the fifth floor of a building with no elevator…i love new york). we called the club to see what time we needed to be there for load-in and soundcheck, and then promptly took showers and went out for food. we got to the club nice and early, and headed straight to the stage to set up and run through a couple of songs.

then we sat around for a little while until we played. i went down a few doors to a thrift shop and bought a new shirt. i spotted a t-shirt at another shop that says "i fucked your girlfriend" and instantly started coveting it. i went back to the club to tell ben and chris and then ben informed me that they also have ones that say "i fucked your boyfriend." it was decided that we would get one. then i went down to the stand to get one and found out that the only size they had them in at the moment was xl and they were $15. too big and too much…sorry about your luck.

then we played. talk about a lame show. it was our third set in 24 hours and we were totally beat. it showed. we played the least rockin' set of the entire tour, probably providing a pretty uninteresting show for everyone in attendance. after we played i loaded off the stage and then went back down the street to a little coffeeshop that had computers for emailing. i caught up on most of my email and had a mocha. it was relaxing, i guess. then i went back down to the club and thoroughly enjoyed q and not u's set. those guys are fucking awesome. i really dig the new shit.

then we went back to ben's for precious sleep and then a day off in new york. the next day we drove down to ground zero. it's scary how big that hole is. i haven't been in the city since all the "stuff" happened, so i was really stunned by the magnitude. we ended up heading into chinatown to eat at house of vegetarian and then back to ben's for laundry and more precious sleep.

highlights of nyc: jersey girl and the chinese ice cream place

[setlist]

the first part of a brief summation of my two weeks of tour with kilowatthours. this covers the east coast portion, which was roughly the first week…

4/26 louisville, ky @ rudyard kipling's
the home show. this was the one i was most worried about, considering i was playing my first show with the band in front of a ton of people i know. it ended up going really well and everyone seemed to be into it, which was awesome. we all went back to my house and crashed out and then left early in the morning for…

4/27 greensboro, nc @ guilford college
the first out of town show ended up being at this tiny college kinda in the middle of nowhere. the exit that we got off on had the best landmark in the world: an exotic carwash. we were going to get the van washed by a bunch of topless girls, but then we found out that it cost $40 and they didn't let you stay in the car when they washed it. needless to say, we called it a giant ripoff and left.

the show ended up going really well. we finished our set in time to grab some beer and head into winston-salem to see trans am. they rocked the house with two drummers and seriously kicked our tour right in the pants.

after the show we went to stay at our new friend greg's place. as we were backing into the driveway, dan ran the van straight into the side of greg's house,, getting the van stuck until he gunned it loose, tearing off a two foot square section from the chimney. greg was standing there with his dog on a leash and a beer in his hand, assuring us that it was no big deal.

first out of town night and i got no sleep. dan was snoring, so i clapped my hands a couple of times to make him stop. this ended up screwing me because this caused greg's dog to come scrambling in from the other room to jump on me and try to eat my ear. i would have been better off in the van.

highlights of the evening: the beer igloo and "three rivers"

4/28 washington, dc @ black cat and 4/29 arlington, va @ galaxy hut
one of the worst shows of the tour, but nothing beats the dc eats. we rolled into town and headed over to trevor's house and then straight to ben's chili bowl. this place has some of the world's best vegetarian chili and an amazing veggie burger. i highly recommend it to everyone.

apparently on the way into town we just missed getting plowed by a tornado. we didn't know this until we were settled in at trevor's, watching some tv.

we headed over to the black cat and didn't get to soundcheck, yet the opening band sat in there, running through half their set. they even took the big dressing room. that's what we get for showing up for load-in on time. thanks a lot, jackasses. they didn't even stick around to watch our set.

which was for the better. the small room at the black cat is basically a painted cinderblock bunker. the bas hit the walls and rolled off and beat the shit out of us on stage. we couldn't hear anything except a deafening, muddy wail. the people that did stick arround said it sounded fine for the audience, but i'm not buying that one…

we stayed the night at trevor's and then spent the entire next day driving around dc, looking at lots of landmarks and museums and other things of historical signifigance.

then we drove a whopping 20 minutes to arlington and played in a place that is smaller than my bedroom. thanks to tiara for making it all worth the time.

then we stayed at trevor's again.

highlights of the days spent in the dc area: juliet, ben's chili bowl, and meeting james.

4/30 boston, ma @ middle east
arguably the best show of the whole tour, boston is still one of my favorite cities on the east coast. we rolled into town and went straight to the middle east for load-in and soundcheck. we got an awesome half price dinner served to us by an amazingly hot waitress who ben and i steadily hit on for the rest of the night.

the first band was laughably bad, so i won't be mentioning their name. they closed their show with a cover of the pixies song "gigantic." keep in mind we're in boston, home of the pixies. let's also not forget that the song iss about a black man's huge penis. this chunky white woman with horrible stage "moves" and her awful off-time tamborine…she had no clue why we were laughing so hard.

we hit the stage and right when we were about to start, chris blew two of his four power tubes on his amp. a minor panic ensued, which was quickly resolved by one of the guyss from the headlining band letting us borrow his amp that was pretty much exactly what chris was using anyway.

with the technical difficulty out of the way, we proceeded to blow the roof off the place, closing with dancers and acrobats and turning the end into a wailing rock orgy. chris fell down and a d box almost went straight up his ass. the rock must go on.

we stayed at the hot waitresses house, but had to leave first thing in the morning for a live performance on mit's radio station. that went well, except that chris had to play through a sansamp because we weren't able to find an open music store that early in the morning in order to buy new tubes for chris's amp. we did, however, snatch a cool wooden lighthouse from a pile of wierd debris in a back hallway of the radio station.

highlights of the evening: charlie bravo and hearing about the birth of anya

[setlist]

5/1 new york, ny @ brownie's
more on this one when i can flush my mind of how bad i felt we played.

Well, it is safe to say that I am -not- at the Empty Bottle tonight to see KWH. I wanted to go, but I rather needed to study for my two midterms on Wednesday, and lord knows five hours in the car and three standing around at the club aren't going to help me with those.

I can't really think of anything funny at the moment. Back to Ulysses.

• Anyone from that lame-ass pitchfork site.
• Dilbert.
• Brian from bipolar.

It wouldn't even be a fight really. Fighting implies that both parties are punching. It would be more of a gang-stomping.

Does Brian posting mean that we can't post anymore? Who knows.

I'm in the midst of a nine-page final paper for a history class. Two pages and a bunch of reading in. I have three final exams to attend next week, and of course, between two of the exams, I have an interview at FedEx. Please cross your fingers for me so at some point I can start dreaming about owning a PS2 without feeling guility about the ironic impact of such dreaming on the possibility of finding a summer job. My mind is pretty weird.

As much as I hate Andrew W.K. the blogger, his music is fairly entertaining. Here is my review of the first track from his album, as done in "overblown Pitchfork 10.0 style."

Andrew W.K. – "It's time to party"

Clocking in an ever-so-brief 90 seconds, "It's Time to Party" encapsulates all of the thunderous sentiment that rock and roll once possessed, but is nary present in these times of pro-tools manufacturing. Shredding the gossamer wings which lighter songcraft depends on, "Hey you! Let's Party!" is a call-to-arms like few other artists could dare to approach, embossing its chants with a pounding 2/2 beat and an epidemic of racing keyboards. This music would defeat artificial intelligence – the final cure for James Cameron's Terminator – since the decidedly human elements of this rock beast would blow all of their circuits with its sheer willpower. As Andrew W.K. bellows out the final line of this doctrinal work – "There's going to be a party tonight!" – the listener has no option but to become the drone to his Queen Bee. Andrew W.K. does not merely change your views on music; his vehement party platform will change your outlook on life, like a rock and roll version of Marx and Engels' "Communist Manifesto," minus all of the boredom and low-fi production values that plagued that seminal work. It is a mission statement for an entire album of mission statements – perhaps not the most memorable track, but the most necessary in establishing a cohesive document for Andrew W.K.'s unique world vision.

sitting in an internet caf? in the village in nyc. like andrew wk…i, too, love new york city.

in brief: worst show of tour successfully played. mass quantities of beer successfully consumed. more thorough report tomorrow when we have a day off.

(a drinking story)

I drank half a bottle of rum and a six pack. I don't know why. I showed up at my house at like 3PM and everyone was drunk, throwing beer bottles all over the house. It seemed like a good idea at the time. So, now I'm at work all hungover. My coworkers are all looking at me like "Are you a goddamn drunk?" I'm all like "Nah bitches. Step off."

There's a huge hole in my living room wall too. I don't know how that happened. It might have been a result of our Jump Into The Wall Contest. Landlord is not going to be happy.

Since one of the staples of Brian's normal participation in Bipolar is work-related complaints, I figure I'll fill that void with some of my own. I currently have a fairly cushy job at the University of Illinois Ice Arena as a supervisor, but unfortunately, the ice rink will be closed for the bulk of May and June. This means Sebastian needs a summer job just like ol' Andrew WK needs a cock-punch (Apparently he was on Loveline and Politically Incorrect last night – whoop-te-doo).

I was originally going to work at either UPS or FedEx, as both pay well, but my girlfriend is none too pleased with their possible hours, so that is a last possible resort. I checked out a similar opportunity with something called "Supervalu" but the sheer expanse of their parking lot and warehouse scared me in some deep, existentially threatening way. So the contenders right now are… the trio of Borders/Best Buy/Circuit City, for whom I picked up applications… IMPE (the more "gym" oriented wing of Campus Recreation)… and Hollywood Video (which is two blocks away and already in possession of my application.

The problems are as follows. 1. When a place says, "We're always accepting applications!" this means that they are not currently hiring. I know because that's what I tell people here. I believe all three of Borders/Best Buy/Circuit City all said that phrase. 2. I'm comfortable in my current work environment. I know everybody, I know what I'm doing, etc. IMPE wouldn't be too big of a switch, but… 3. I need money. Most of these jobs are minimum wagey. Bleh.

To add some humor into this work related diatribe, here are some of the funniest things I've heard people ask me at ye olde ice rink. 16 year old kid from Christian Broomball party at midnight on a Saturday… "Where is your potty room?" Asian guy asking for skates.. "Do you have size 917?" "Where is the ice?" In addition, pretty much anything at 5:30am on a Saturday is funny.

I have a day off in New Orleans. I love NYC, but this town knows how to party. Apparently, US currency gets exchanged for cheap plastic beads upon entrance to the "Big Easy," but I don't have any problem with this. I just walk around going "Man, she's beautiful" and "Fuck, she is beautiful" while chicks show me their tits and get me wet.

Some people have posed the question of whether or not I am serious. I am most certainly serious. I do everything to the greatest extent possible. I live life without boundaries. My music is based upon this foundation. I re-recorded my vocals until it sounded like I was vomiting out most lines, since that is quite intense. I believe that just by hearing I Get Wet, you will get wet, and that is a great thing. If my music is not your thing, that is fine. Just party till you puke with whatever you like and we'll be bros in the morning.

Would you like some cocaine?

Sebastian pondered if I ever shower. I only shower when I have pussy on my face and then I shower in cheap beer. My tour bus has running Bud Light on tap, so I said, "Why not in the showers?" and they installed it.

People wanted me to review records. I listen to almost everything, so this isn't too hard. My review scale is ***** = Ready to die, **** = Parties till it Pukes, *** = Parties Hard, ** = It better be time to party soon, and * = Got wet from broken colostomy bag.

Here are two records.

Mates of State: Our Constant Concern – Rating=**. I can only guess that these two people fuck a lot because they're married and their music doesn't rock too much. I make my most rocking music when I haven't shot my load lately (all slow jams for the next album), so all of this stuff seems like what you would listen to after you're done partying and getting wet. I never stop, so I don't know what that feeling would be like, but I'm guessing this would work for it. Their first album had fuller production, which I liked, while this one has too much free space.

Girls Against Boys: You Can't Fight What You Can't See: Rating=****. I should tour with these guys, because they seem to know how to party. Their keyboard/bass player used to wear a shirt that said "picture this shirt wet," which is cool, but also why they don't get *****. It should be "this t-shirt is wet." "Bulletproof Cupid," "Learned It," and "Crash 17" all showed how they used to be ready to die and ready to kill, but now they're just partying real hard, which is good, but not totally soaking wet. "All the Rage" and "Resonance" are covered in puke. It's a good record for the first 10 hours of a party, but when it comes to the home stretch, I'd rather have my record or Puff Daddy's rock remix of "All About the Benjamins."

Keep chatting with me at andrewwkillyou on AIM. I'm mainly off partying, but leave a message and I'll get back to you.

It seems like the response to our "friend" Andrew W.K. has been positive, so I'll stop with my pleas to Brian to rescind his Blogger access. I just wish he'd wash that one white t-shirt he wears. Shit dude, aren't showers included in getting wet?

Since I'm a nice guy and content is fun, here are some band
s I have recently taken photographs of: Shiner, Milemarker, Fugazi, Schatzi, Poster Children, and Absinthe Blind.

If you happen to need the right fist for the Transformer Predaking, or hell, if you just think it would look threatening as a pendant, feel free to bid on my item.

And of course, the reader participation part of the program. 1. What brand / model of 27" tv should I buy with my tax refund? 2. Do I need a Playstation 2? 3. What's the best Zeppelin album? Answers can be posted in the comments link or IM'd to winder18.