It’s like a fucking shot of adrenaline to the heart, crossing the bridge and those buildings come close into view.

We’re out here on a turn and burn weekend, five hour red-eye flights, eight hours of driving and three-make that two!—quick shows.
Back to work by Tuesday morning.

When we left the tarmac in Long beach it was a scary 90 degrees–this at 9:30 pm people!!
I mean, yeah, we like the warm weather out here, but don’t ya think we should start getting concerned when our local ground temperature feels like a microwaved burrito at dusk in mid March?

The winter coats we hold in the crook of our arms at check-in feel like jokes, and we all eye the dumpster to possibly unload these bulky things.

But as we land on the east coast we learn Winter still has a home.
We walk along the frozen terminal sidewalk with the red-eye Zombie gaze, for somehow we lost 3 hours of our lives in the middle of the night.

Not bad though , as it gives us a chance to wear those stylish scarves that Anthony is always raving about!

Even with the canceled Boston gig the day is not a total loss, not with the bars and pubs in Cambridge all quivering on the eve of St. Patrick’s Day.
Soon the storied cobblestones will be awash with green vomit, so why not get a jump start on things?
Gotta love this town!

We’re up and out early-ish on Saturday, and the lucky sunshine we enjoyed on Friday has given up to a cold gray sleet.

Ah well, we know at the end of the journey we’ll be enjoying the warmth and fine humor of family and friends, so we push on and make it to the state capitol safe and dry.

We pick up ex-Californian Johnny at the Amtrak and make it out to Voorheesville and the Guinness-stocked fridge of Barb and Larry!

We regretfully say our goodbyes after foamy Stouts and corned beef sandwiches, the cold winds just a vapid threat outside of this warm family kitchen.
We squeeze back into scarves and overcoats like grouchy children bundling up for the cold walk to school, each of us eyeing the couch with a silent farewell to the fading chance of nappytime.

On the ride through the countryside we peer out foggy windows at alien sights: Snowdrifts and startled does, the yellow-lit farmhouses breaking long stretches of such beautiful, rare, darkness.

It’s into the Lowbeat club in the heart of Albany for another Saturday night gig in America now.
The place is all warmth and beery comfort to these old Californian bones, and we are soon amidst familiar friendly faces from past visits…..

A rare treat tonight, it happens that Capitle, who we actually played with in Albany our first time out–1982?!-is on the bill with us once again!

We do the thing once again, and then more yucks with the crew!

Sunday is the cold twin of Saturday, but we’ve come to enjoy this weather.
We are hearing of record temps back home and dire predictions of Cali running out of water by year’s end.

These things mean nothing to us as we are just too excited at the unique prospect of wearing gloves—Gloves, people–gloves!

A quick drive back crisscrossing the slutty Hudson, and it’s not long until those iconic buildings of Manhattan come into view.

Ah Jesus, it’s grand to be back in this place.

We find an honest to God parking spot on 7th, and spill into the streets like the tourists we are!
We stop to pet every rat, pester the panhandlers for selfies until they run away screaming.
We’ve made good time, so it’s Lower East Side and the usual haunts for us!

With each photo of a sweating round of beers, after every tavern check in on Facebook, we get the usual responses:
Ah Jeez, here we go again…!
Keep it together Boys!
Can I get a refund for my presale please?

Hah–but no worries, we pull together for a classy burger at Alder and then there’s plenty of time to freshen up for the night to come.

The Grand Victory, it’s quiet from the outside on this night as we pull up.
The streets are empty on a goddamned cold Sunday night and we wonder, just for a moment, hand upon frozen door handle–if no one has showed.

The door opens and we may as well be back at CBGB’s, that first Winter of 1982!
Faces from back then, some hair lost, some hard earned wrinkles gained, but the same damned smiles we’ve known for decades!

We play well, catch up on a million years.
We tell stories we all know but can’t wait to hear again.

Jimmy Gestapo hugs it up and we talk of the Mad Marquis, that fateful rental car we used to power-push parked cars down the snowy streets in front of Jack Rabid’s place.
This three decades ago, he just a kid of 16.

Davey Gunner there too, we drink a toast to Doug Holland and he recalls floating in my Mom’s sparkling pool in Cerritos, the Summer Kraut was on tour in California while we boiled in Astoria.

Huge, serious looking men come over with 3 shots of Bourbon per fist, reminding us of gigs we played when they were skinny street punks at A7.

Women, former girls, catch our eye and shake their heads slowly, just a wisp of a smile.

We shout hellos and goodbyes over the punk rock DJ who keeps the crowd dancing long after the bands have loaded out.

It’s fucking great.

Tomorrow there’ll be an all too early check out time, an hour drive to JFK in rush hour, the squinty scrutiny of van rental return.
The date rape antics of the TSA, the overpriced drinks at the airport bar, and, finally, a seat.

On that jet traveling West, racing now with the Sun and gaining another 3 hours of precious youth, we’ll have a moment motionless.
And that’s when you can let the weekend catch up to you, and you smile the whole way home.

It feels like a lifetime ago we were last on the 5 freeway heading North.

The day starts gloomy and cold.
A gray blank slate of the sky melts seamlessly onto the concrete walls and buildings of the downtown skyline–let’s get the fuck outta here!

It is a thankfully easy drive beyond the gravitational pull of Friday Los Angeles traffic, and we are soon sailing along the green hills.
We count the cow pastures until we find just the right one to pull over and eat one of those delicious Bovines–you got it brother!: Harris Ranch steakhouse!

We use fried smelt to scoop counrty gravy off of the chicken fried steak, take bold stabs at each others’ plates with flashing forks, only to find new drummer Woody staring at us with disgust.
Heh-right.

There’s a new man aboard, and he hasn’t spent a lifetime eating and drinking with us.
We dab at our chins, finally, strangers on a first date.

It is a fine and rare occasion to have local chums and legends The Crowd with us for a weekend jaunt.

We’d been trying to coordinate this weekend with Jim Kaa for seriously five years.
Oh, you just try finding a weekend open to travel for 2 bands, 9 guys, each with family and jobs and schedules of their own.
It’s like…well, it’s like some simile involving juggling or doing something difficulty or something—write your own goddamn floral prose ya lazy bums!

So we are all thrilled the weekend is finally here:
I mean really, people–the fucking Crowd!
These are the guys the Go-Go’s used to open for, the band that invented punk dancing beyond the retarded art-school notion of pogoing!

We load into Johnny V’s as the sky turns dark, and are soon met with some familiar faces from home.
We sit and try to add up the combined age of all the men assembled here backstage, but those Iphone calculators only go up so far……
all right, we get it–we’re old!

And to make a very cool night even cooler, we are joined not only by The Defenders and Sad Boy Sinister but also SF mainstays , The Vktms!

Jeesus–what do you people want?
A ten dollar cover charge for 5 bands that have busted their asses for years?!

Maybe we should tack on a goddamn six buck service fee and 2.50 printing charge huh?
I didn’t hear any bitching about that the last time you bought Monster Truck tickets through Ticketmaster–now did I?!

We foolishly let The Crowd go first on this night and they get up there and lay down the law!
The bar becomes a turbulent ocean, bodies bobbing up and down in undulating waves as the salty spray of cheap domestic pilsner rains down.

You can forget just how many great songs these guys have, and you catch yourself shouting along to verse and chorus that you never knew you knew…
Whooo!

And then we have to follow these guys!
Woody does well on his first official show, though he is somewhat shocked when one bold chap sits down on the stage and actually starts eating Fritos…… during the breakdown to I Got a Gun!

Eh.
As with all things for a 30 year old band, it’s happened before!

Saturday breaks clear and bright, and somehow we are missing miserable weather back home on this No Ca jaunt.
There are soon breathless accounts of thunder and lightning, actual hail coating the sands of Huntington Beach!

We somehow have a hard time sympathizing as it is a gem of a day in San Francisco!
The sky is clear, and it is as warm a day as I’ve ever felt in the shadows of those beastly skyscrapers.

Something tells us a toast is in order, so we follow our inner compass to our old go-to, Vesuvio’s!

Of all things, I turn to the door and who walks in but Mr. Decker himself!
It is either pure destiny or we have become awfully predictable drunks, but we all settle into an upstairs booth and watch the glorious day roll by…

Capn’ Jimmy looks down upon the neighborhood, eyebrow elevated, as he hasn’t been up here since the Mabuhay days!
We point up Broadway to the sleazy locale and reminisce over days of smooth skin and fresh internal organs.

There are a few drinks and then it is decided on some snacks at The Boardroom in North Beach.

Thee Parkside has become thee club to play in this town, mainly so we don’t have to hear the locals bitch about the parking!

Modern Kicks are kicking off the night, and not only do these kids sound great, but they have the best hair since Angel!

And then Sharp Objects get up there and roar through their set of poppy punky goodness:

Thankfully we get to play first tonight, so it’s up there and play a quick set for a roomful of pals.
We resist the urge to just play covers of the whole Beach Blvd album and claim we were on there too!

The Crowd gets up on stage to bring their songs back North once again, and the joy in this club is palpable.

It’s been far too long!

As usual, the night dissolves into the usual greetings and farewells:
Familiar faces glimpsed in passing, a few nods to those across the room.

Hugs, sincere.

We load out on a rare warm night, for this place, at this time of year.
It’s as if we’ve brought the sun baked atmosphere of Southern California along for the weekend.

Back home there is a flash flood watch along Mulholland, there are icicles forming on the gaudy facade on Grauman’s Chinese.
Have we made some devilish pact, as Home freezes over while we bask in the warmth of friends and music?

We’ll take it!

Many thanks Mark Hanford for additional SJ photos and Mike Schmitt for the blurry SF ones!

John Graham Mellor 21 August 1952 – 22 December 2002

We went down to San Diego to catch the Clash on the Combat Rock tour, what was that, 1982?
Real excitement to see a show, the kind of thrill that has been worn down from years of countless gigs and shameless guestlist action.

But then we were bubbling over and pregaming in a shabby motel room, taking turns at writing our fantasy setlists on the blank back pages of a Gideon’s bible.

Will they open with Complete Control? Safe Euro Home?
We downed another Coors banquet and joined the other kids walking to the show, a tribe united.

.

The band was at the top of their game, though sadly without Topper Headon onboard.
They had mastered the form, slaying the crowd with guitar and shout, had the room going crazy as one.

But it was when they did Straight to Hell, Joe bathed in blue spotlight, alone, that’s when they really showed the power of the quiet moment.

He told his story of Eurasian throwaways in almost a whisper, and it made the song all the more tragic and beautiful.

Oh, there were lots of other Clash shows after, watching them graduate to actual stadiums as The Who brought them along for one of their many farewells.
We left the Coliseum before Townshend did his first windmill of the night, satisfied that our boys took the baton from the aging gray rockers with style.

Then we suffered through Cut the Crap with everyone else, wanting so hard to go along on this new lineup but never being able to forgive Joe for cutting off Mick Jones.

They went out with a whimper, it turns out.
The only band that matters faded out finally.

Then with the Mescaleros, it seemed as though Joe had a renewed sense of creativity, and there were even whispers of a reunion.
Was it too mush to hope for, a comeback that would be not just a quick cash in tour, but a reconciliation of men still in creative prime?

I got the news that Joe passed on Dec 22. And now Christmas will always be linked to that death, just as Easter always reminds me of the other king Joe, Ramone, who passed on that very holiday of rebirth: irony intact.

And if we thrust sainthood upon them, our Joes who art in heaven, it is more for our own comfort, nothing to do with them.

After all, he was no angel, by all accounts a bit of a hothead stoner and control freak–this was the man who kicked goddamned Mick Jones out of a band for fucks’ sake!

But what do ya want?
We have to validate our love and our life somehow, don’t we?

And so we wear the T-shirts and paint the murals, making our heroes live on.

A night after the news had spread, I went to the local House of Blues for one of the myriad Social Distortion shows that used to take over that shed for all of December.

I ran into a lot of people, some would burst into actual tears, though most just used the tragic news as an excuse to get drunker than usual.

Ness came out, and instead of the usual opener he and a keyboard player did a slow quiet version of When Angels Sing.

I was reminded of that night decades ago, and a quiet moment that changed me.

Joe onstage, alone in a spotlight.

When we last left our heroes they were standing on the sand, arm in arm before a glorious sunset.
This will be the last out of towner for the year, a year that’s been filled with strange and wondrous jaunts.

Later in the evening, yes, at wacky tacky Benihanas, we make toast upon toast to these travels:

The long weekends spent in the Arizona ghettos or amidst the siren call of the Clark street bars, Chicago
Huddled around the Hard Rock blackjack table with the Shattered Faith crew post-gig, willing each other to blow their nightly pay on sketchy double down bets.

Was it really just days ago we stood on a rainy Portland street corner eating pork belly, the new coin of the realm, upon toasted pupusa?

Another round of blue drinks is crowded upon the Teppan cooktop , jostling for room against towers of giant Sapporo and steaming flasks of sake.

When a man might live forever….

Saturday

Like X-Men, we have developed unique superpowers at this stage of our lives.
Unfortunately, that gift is the ability to rouse from deep slumber and pee twice a night.

I roll off the squeaky twin and stumble for the bathroom, locked of course.
Alf is already up, shaving god knows what part of his body.

It’s a clenched elevator ride down to the lobby bathroom and if the front desk are shocked by my houndstooth pj bottoms and Cheap Trick Tshirt, they don’t respond beyond a smile and offer of a bottled water.

Back at the room the fellas are rousing, each of us sitting up in our wee beds set in a row.

It looks like nothing so much as a set up for a Three Stooges routine, and the last dim memory of the night before was the roaring syncopated symphony of snore burp and
fart.

But it’s just a few steps down the hall to the crysatlline pool, and we dunk our throbbing heads beneath waterfall and feel grand in no time!

Text are sent back and forth, chirping cell phones are hushed with a swipe of thumb and we are all set.
The kind promoter checks in to see if we are settled, can send a van over early if we wish to soundcheck.
Soundcheck? What is this strange thing you speak of?

We briefly weigh the sparkling ocean just a block away against spending a precious hour listening to Alf hitting a snare drum in an empty club.

Let’s hit the beach, shall we?

Lunch and then a quick tour of the indoor bars suggested by the locals.
We are pleased to see advertisements for the gig scattered here and there, and if we are embarrassed by the term Legends printed there in our reference, we only have to remind ourselves that Bigfoot remains a legend as well.

And like him, we are hairy mythical beasts that survive on stolen laundry and spam musubi.
Carry on!

After a refreshing nap back in our orphanage, we hit the nighttime streets of Honolulu and make our way to Anna O’Briens.

It turns out to be a proper night club, with a stage and electric lights and everything!

I don’t know what we expecting, maybe a palm thatched stage lit by torch.
Where do we get these goddamned ideas?

Another treat added to a weekend filled with them, we have a grip of old friends here to meet us.
Some have moved here, some just happen to be visiting at the time, and it is a blast to catch up so far away from our grubby roots.

And then we get up there and do the thing we came to do.
I mean, besides eating drinking and wallowing about the sand, silly!

And then like every other gig, it is over all too soon.

We don’t want it to end, not any of it.
Not the night, or the weekend or this fucking year.

We have time to chat up a few more friends before the houselights are flashed on, and though the rude jolt of reality is always illuminated by those harsh last-call floods, we simply remind ourselves:
we just played a set in goddamn Hawaii!

And we smile.

A late ride back to hotel, and maybe time for one more MocoLoco and one last view from the balcony:
A glowing moon, its yellow paint bled onto calm seas.

It’s not 8 hours later we are back through the Security checkpoint, a hundred dropped at airport bar and sealed back in the aluminum tube that hurtles toward home.

The plane clears the island below and banks East, wings dipping low enough for us to get a last glimpse of that blue Pacific.

An ocean shared, yet, home, translated to a far less melodic language.

Honolulu
What comes to mind?

The swaying palms over white sandy beaches, the smiling locals who greet you at the lobby with perfumed Orchid leis in hand?
Drinking playful rum drinks to the sound of slack key guitars, majestic Diamond Head looming in the distance?

Maybe a romantic romp in the sand, the imagery in your mind always comes back in gorgeous black and white, and you imagine rolling among the warm waves holding a young Deborah Kerr.

The Honolulu that greets us Friday off the 7am flight from LAX (this only after the 160 dollar stay at the airport bar ahem), is a brighter noisier place.
It is a proper metropolis after all, not the collection of Gilligan styled huts and coconut husk condoms that we all wished it would still be.

From the airport we only see glimpses of the blue Pacific between warehouses and shopping malls.
But soon we are dropping our bags off and putting on shorts and ridiculous shoes.
We are, we tell ourselves, on island time.

Here for one show only, Saturday night, so we have the whole goddamned day to make fools of ourselves among the sand and surf.

We’re out now, traipsing down the strand, past the fifteen dollar Ramen joints and ABC Stores, hang a right through the swanky lobby of the Sheraton and then we are there.

Sandals are cast aside as we dig our dogs into the warm sand.
The ocean lay before us, glorious green-blue, deep as any carpet of a Vegas high roller suite.

And that warm breeze, it envelopes you like a hug from a parent gone, delicious.

The hotels loom large above the Waikiki strand, staring down at at our touristy hijinks like disapproving mamas.
We can almost hear their sighs and detect shakes of their stony heads as we roll in the sand, the dogs that we are.

It is such a short trip, we try to cram the Hawaii experience into those few hours, those few meters along the shore.

We gorge ourselves on gravy flooded Moco Loco and fatty cheeseburgers, sip at drinks we can barely prounounce.

I soon catch myself drinking a potent MaiTai out of a Buddha-shaped souvenir glass, and though I am instantly shamed I cannot help myself from sipping Curaçao tinted Rum from a straw stuck in the smiling prophet’s belly!

We stop at every barefoot bar we come across, sneaking into guests-only pools and peeing in the warm blue ocean. Or did I get that backwards?

Because things get messy at this point.
Alf and Ant start to wrestle on the lawn, bartenders run out after us, waving tabs we’d honestly forgotten to pay.

We take selfish selfies to send back to the working crowd back home, and notice again it is not Monty Clift we resemble so much as sweaty slobbering Ernest Borgnines in these unlying portraits.

Have we discovered the true nature of the beast?

The leis about our necks smell not of fragrant Hibiscus, but the common formaldahyde used in Chinese plastics factories.
And it is Van Halen (Hagar era for chrissake!) that blares out at us from the barefoot bars, not the soothing tone of steel string or Prewitt’s mournful bugle.

And that romp is the sand?
Is it Warden and Captain Holmes’ wife all over again?

More like this, brother!

But is soon a merciful sunset, so glorious that we all stop and applaud.

We marvel at the time, a rare treat to gain some hours in our travels.
Alfie and Ant are all bro hugs now, so we contemplate the ultimate tourist treat, dinner at Benihanas!

Surrendered, completely, to the charms of this place.
We only have to turn our backs to the light and noise that pulse from corporate chain hotels and consider the last of that glorious sunset.

It takes only a final sparkle from that jewel of ocean before we allow the cliche to ourselves: paradise.

“Musicians, eh?” says the lady pushed into my elbow.
She nods at the stack of guitar cases propped against the bar wall. A collection of backpacks is piled into a pyramid nearby as if recently dropped from a Red Cross mercy mission, their meshed outer pockets betraying the scuffed headphones and tangled phone chargers of a band on the road.

“Yes ma’am,” I say, without making eye contact. I scan the crowded joint, trying to get the waiter’s attention.
It is 7am, Gladstones bar in terminal 3, LAX. I calculate enough time for one more large Sam Adams, (Maker’s sidecar, only 3 bucks more!), and still have enough time to attempt a fortunate bowel movement before boarding.

“Oh, I can tell, you guys.” She takes another slug off her martini, 3 olives and dirty. (Make it Bombay Sapphire, only 4 more dollars!)
She’s had 3 since we’ve been here, and is now shaking an empty glass toward our bartender: international distress call of the thirsty.
She smiles to herself, and I know a confession is coming.

“I’ve had my wild days too, let me tell you.” but here she rolls her eyes as if to dismiss any chance of embellishment.
She looks to be in her 50’s like us, but wearing the sensible footwear and layered clothing of the experienced business traveler.

We’re all packed in there, the airport bar, members of different tribes thrown together out of primal necessity.
Let’s get a few drinks in us after enduring the TSA rape, before another tedious flight.

The business lady sits to my left so close I can feel a Blackberry vibrate from the purse in her lap.
To Alf’s starboard side a rotund insurance rep from Farmers is explaining Term life over shots of Fireball.
I look across the bar where Ant and Kimm are comforting a frail gray lady, on her way to Des Moines for her son’s funeral.
She sips at her sherry and sighs yet again: Him and that goddamn motorcycle!

But that’s how it is at the airport bar.

Where else can you come at 6 am and find the room packed with drinkers, thirsty as the Friday night crowd on 4th street?
Strangers all, drawn to the oasis within the wilds of the airport, carry-on bags at their feet, laptops opened on sticky bar tops, asking strangers across the bar if they happen to know the WiFi code?

Where else would you come at this gray hour for a 22oz Pacifico, (Why not add a shooter of Patron? $5 !) and gladly pay the 14 bucks for the privilege.

Where else will you catch us in a goddamn TGIF, and happy about it?

For airports have become not the sleek hubs of yesteryear, where you would relax in anticipation of a classy adventure.
No, they have become frightening places.
People roam the halls with a look of terror in their eyes, many shoeless and half dressed after the Security checkpoint trauma.
They clutch at their waistbands, lest their beltless trousers fall to the floor, completing their shame.

But there is one place, brother, that the wounded can come in to lick their wounds, not to mention the salt rimmed glasses of 18 dollar bloodys (3 bucks extra, make it with premium vodka!)

We’ve been to a lot of these airport bars, the swanky champers and oyster bars of Heathrow, where the lemon wedge comes in its own fishnet stocking.
The zinc covered bar at Brussels International, where they still chop the head off of the foamy lagers with a wooden spatula.

The Redding airport houses its own charming Chinese restaurant and lounge up the rickety staircase.
There, you can put in an advance order for drinks and greasy appetizers to be waiting for you when you return for the flight home in 3 days time.
Mr. Chow: No problem, you guys crazy!

Oh, we’ve scanned the internet for these flights, months before.
Sacrificing an extra hour of sleep or enduring a stopover in goddamned Atlanta for a fare just 35 dollars cheaper.

And yet here we are, playing that sucker bet of bars.
We’ll have the breakfast Nachos, double the size of the beers and of course take the side shot, who wouldn’t?

And when we get the bill, for now the plane requests our presence by name for final boarding, we don’t bat an eyelash at the bill, a neat 225 with tip!

And for all their unique charms, it is the same travelers in each one:

Honeymooners, as drunk on romance as the prospect of 2 weeks off of work before returning to a life of ever-decreasing returns.

The rumpled outside sale rep, ordering another round of premium doubles and a to-go order of buffalo wings, old Hooper in the travel expense department be damned–I earned this!

You have the 6am drunks, thrilled to be out in public and sharing respectable space with other humans. They’d be downing vodka at this hour anyway, but usually in the solitary guilt of their bathrooms, so this is a fuckin party!

Here’s the rare bird, the guy who stops at the airport bar on the way home, just willing the journey to last a few minutes more over a ten dollar shot of Southern Comfort. (make it a double, 5 dollars, why not?)
He savors the delicious taste of solitude a few moments more, just one more drink before returning to a house filled with whining teenagers.

And then the truly terrified flyers, usually not regular drinkers here, that wash Jager shots down with Jameson buckets, praying for God to rob them of consciousness before the jet engines start their terrifying roar toward inevitable disaster.

And it is here humanity is together, at last, at peace.
Like Lions and zebras lounging about the same watering hole in Zambia, each too sated with water-filled bellies to think of attack or flight.

We’re gathered to lap up the local waters and good-naturedly endure the soliloquies of fellow traveler.

And it isn’t long into martini number 4 when business lady leans in even closer and confesses to once “being” with Stephen Pearcy from Ratt one scandalous night.

She rolls her eyes and shakes her head slowly at the memory of a night at the Forum Club, 3 decades ago, when the world and its promise still lay before her, unspoiled.

And she will not go into further details, thank you.

She raises empty glass to the skies once again, the skies we will soon be hurtling through, each of us going in an opposite direction.

8 am on the 405, the numeric code for running late to LAX.

We are all glued to our phone screens, as we hold image after terrifying image of savage wildfires in our paws.
The air is already a balmy 98 fucking degrees, combined with a Santa Ana blast that makes this smoldering town a natural blow dryer: 5000 watts baby!

The land is burning, people are pushed toward the edge by the unseasonable heat.
And like cowards, we’re gonna hoof it out of town and hope the city is not a pile of charcoal by the time we return.

It is so traumatic that Ant and Alf have a third Mimosa to calm their shattered nerves, the poor lambs!

We hit the ground running, and after being bitched out for trying to carry guitars on board-late, natch, we are tucked into wee cabin seats and told to shut up.
And away, it seems, we go.

Curbside in Columbus Ohio and it is a delightful 55 degrees at 6pm.
We take a moment to strip off shirts and do the Shawshank happy dance, finally cooled.

Our heartland handler Mr Beenie scoops us up in the minivan and we take in the sights of this storied college burg.

Our fist time to Columbus, don’t ya know, so we’re just navigating by Yelp reviews and Alf’s goddamn Untappd beer badge app to make our way around town.

The gig is at Ace of Cups, a delightful club with high ceilings and crafty brews that are as cloudy as the eyes of a 15 year old Bichon Frise.
We seem to be onto our theme of the trip as Alf snorts and sniffs each ale, comparing them with the other beer maniacs at the rail.
We have to pull him away from the bar for set time, and he is still shouting things like hoppy, crispy and notes of chocolate!
Oh brother—one tall PBR for me thanks!

We play a quick set, though we apparently do not have any photographic proof–trust us for once, alright?
We did however get this shot of Alf’s nifty kit for the night!

Up at a sensible time and it’s off toward that Windy slut of a town, Chicago!

Lunch stop is at the charming Fat Cat Diner in Lima Ohio, where they serve up some quality chow without pretense.
It’s still a breezy 58 degrees out, but after a few calls home tell us about rising temps, power blackouts and looters lining up outside the Best Buy, we toast the chilly Spring day and sit on the patio.

We get onto Lake Shore Drive just as Friday rush hour traffic congeals.
It takes a good 30 minutes to crawl into midtown, so we say fuck it and head to The Lodge to wait out the traffic.

Over to the Northside now, and load into Red Line Tap.
Very cool club, attached to the Heartland Cafe, where we are comped down with some great comfort food and, yes, more of the beers with honest pedigree.

Alf taps away at his phone with each new beer, apparently he’s winning at something here.
Whatever.
It keeps him from fidgeting at the dinner table.

Ant is thrilled to have a TV showing the Kings game, and it isn’t long until they inevitably come back from a down series and dispatch the Ducks.
Next up?
Yeah, you got it–Chicago Blackhawks!
We hit the stage and it isn’t 3 songs before Anthony is baiting the crowd with his hockey shit talk.

And then we while away the night with our Chi town chums.

It’s not long before beds at the swanky Heart o Chicago fleabag are calling, but not before a sensible late night stop at, you guessed it-White Castle!

Saturday breaks all too early, and we consider the leftover chicken rings littering the soiled carpet of the motel.
Yes, I said chicken rings, as the clever crew at White Castle has apparently discovered a new part of the chicken for us to eat.

Heh. We need to rinse the foul fast foodness off palate, so it’s over to Fat Willy’s for a light morning snack.
On the advice of vodka-and-tomato juice expert Jeff, we order up the best Bloody Mary’s in town.
He’s right, they are damn good, and we can’t control ourselves with this menu and these smells.
Bring on the meat!

There’s time for a quick pulled pint over at Owen & Engine, as Alf hasn’t had his handcrafted Ale for the day yet! The horror!

It’s an easy drive into Cleveland, and we have just enough time to check into Beenie’s pad and say hello to Mackie:

And then it’s into that den of wickedness, Cleveland’s own Now That’s Class!
Refreshingly, we don’t see any craft beers on tap, so while Alf goes and pouts in the basement we dig into a literal rainbow of fine fortified wines.

The mighty The Plain Dealers are letting loose on stage now, and they bring it as they always do!
Rawkin!

Great to catch up with all our Cleveland pals, but it’s back to the basement for us to tune, for there’s still one show left on this little jaunt.

And then we hit that stage and it’s all we expect from this crazy town:
A beer soaked, sweaty night, the stage sticky from a dozen spilled drinks, the crowd loud and loose: perfect.

The night ends with the tables turned, as they put us to work behind the bar and the staff sits down at the rail.
The bartenders, they yell at us to hurry up and call us baby.
Someone actually snaps their fingers, just to give us a taste of our own medicine.

We hold back the tears as we count our meager tips at the end of our shift.

And just like that, we’re waking up on Sunday morning and hustled back to the airport.

We finally touchdown in LA.
We load out to the curb and find the fever has broken, the temperatures have dropped to a comfy 79 degrees at 8pm.

And as we make our way back down the 405, each of us silent with our own calculations of calories consumed over this whirlwind weekend, Alf’s phone chimes yet one more time:
We won.