A Brief History Of Tour Vol. 1 (SF)

So, this internet thing has been much more elusive on tour than one might have expected. Traveling around this big unwired country we've had few opportunities to broadcast our doings in the charming if quirky way that might be expected.

Now, we're in Austin, sitting in the cafe just under Chris's balcony -- The Spider House. I just finished my espresso milkshake and so am revved up to start catching up on some of the events of the couple of legs. I've got a bullet-pointed list of everything that's happened in my little black moleskin book, but maybe I'll page through for selected highlights and articulate them here as anecdotes, with the bullet points only for context:

17 July
-up at 1 at Carol's
-lunch at Taqueria Cancun
We walk down the street and through an intersection towards 826 Valencia, Dave Eggers' so-called "independent pirate supply store" in the Mission. We pass the clutter of mid-height, pale-colored, dirt-crusted buildings, cross an intersection and see a strangely pristine, new storefront with the words 826 Valencia in gold letters on the purple front and a towering front decorated with splindly pseudo-architectural drawings. This is 826 Valencia.
We stand for a minute in front of the display window trying to decode the meaning of this white-washed skeleton leaning over a cracked wooden chest wearing a red t-shirt and a misty expression. There are Russian vocabulary cards on the floor. and costume jewels strewn about.
We go inside to find an space not entirely unlike the interior of a giant gilded oak cabinet. There are displays of small rings and other knicknacks with magnifying lenses infront of them. Above this viewing station, a large box hands ominously, it's bottom door tied to a thick braided rope that curves back behind the counter. As we walk around the periphery of the small room, we come across a series of inset drawers with cryptic labels. "Crushing" reveals a series of marble mortar and pestles. We find piano hammers, a box of scarves, small pirate figurines. Also cut into the walls are a series of dioramas, like Cornelll boxes without the glass they seem to illustrate obscure moral lessons.
Amongst all the books and tourist daubles, we find old copies of Might, Eggers' magazine that plays prominently in A Heartbreaking Work. I browse through a small novellalette of his about a fictional Orange County politician while listening to the kids writing class being held in the roped-off back area which extends oppulently off the store. We buy some small things, including the "Goals" sign Cary mentioned in an early post, chat with the girl behind the counter about the David Sedaris live album playing in the store before heading back out into the city.
The trap over the jewel display is never triggered in our presence.
-an hour break
-drive to the Hotel Utah
-unloading
-watching the other two bands soundcheck
-getting set up
-a short wait
-Carol shows up with about ten of her med. school friends
set:
You Make Me Worry
The Image
Angel
PS
Reid's Song
Starman
-we cut Deep End due to time
-Will and Jen head out to go to a party of Jen's friends
We head up to the balcony area that hovers in the middle of the Hotel Utah, dividing the sunken stage section in half. We chat for a while with Carol's friends while One Ring Zero, the next band sets up. We head down to the bar and manage to weasel some garlic mashed potatoes and warm spinach salad from them despite the kitchen being closed. One Ring Zero takes the stage: a drummer with a box drum for a throne, an accordionist, and a Clavinettist -- a kind of accordion that one blows into through a straw poking out the top. Their songs all have lyrics by famous authors, commissioned explicitly for the purpose: Paul Auster, Lemony Snickett, Michael Chabon (actually, they used his rejection letter), Margaret Atwood, etc. They had some kind of connection to Fresh Air, either a segment about them, or their participation in a segment about the Clavinet. No surprise, they were from Brooklyn.
-Las Pesadillas (Jewish-folk violin-tinged rockabillly)
-loading our stuff back into Cary's car
-a homeless guy comes by saying he just got done working "security"
-drive back to Carol's
-meeting her there after she takes the bus back from the bar with her friends
-sleep

End day 1. Maybe future entries shouldn't be this long, but there won't be as many pirate supply stores to describe so that shouldn't be a big problem.