As I’m watching Mt. Saint Helens pass in the distance out of the window of the van, the thought occurs to me… I love this life I have. Over the course of the last five months I’ve seen every corner of the country, been in and out of Canada a couple of times, and all over Europe… and getting ready to do it all over again. If anyone out there read the first column I put up months ago, you may recall that I went on in this speech about how I was basically disgusted with my life and what I had let it become…. ya know, the boring mundane atrocity of what I had let my day to day become, and all that shit. Well, I’m far more broke than I was before, but happy to share, and I love what I’m doing.

In the Red is currently on tour with our good friends Anchor Down (Portland) and Bastards Of Young (Sacramento). There are 11 of us all together in 2 vans. Neither of which have air conditioning, nor proper seat belts, etc. etc…. For the third time in as many days we’ve overheated. Thank god Alex from Anchor Down is a first rate mechanic. There isn’t much that we could’ve expected, I mean, there are six of us in this van that was bought for four hundred dollars, loaded down with equipment, a straight six, and 104 degrees outside climbing hills all fucking day long. This many people together in rough travel conditions, with no attitudes or issues of any kind for three weeks, is a rarity. This is one of the most fun rock tours I’ve ever been on. "We’re all on vacation," that’s the kind of attitude that we’ve got. We’re not concerned with taking ourselves too seriously, it’s hot as fuck and everyone knows that if any of us stress about money or timelines things could get really hard, really quick. So… we go to movies, the Padres game, drink lots of cold beer, pick up baseball games in the parking lots of venues, long walks around town, Walmarts, and then more beer! All of the shows have been great fun, but mostly I’m most thankful that everyone is in the same mind frame… we’re a team and gotta stick together. (Someone contact Lucas from Anchor Down and ask him what zooking is!)

Once again as I always seem to say, the tour is coming to an end too fast. We’ve only got four days left. It will be really nice to end up our last two days in Colorado with Virgil and the Suburban Home crew. Denver is like coming home for me… Something I’m not finding too often these days. I mean, I’ve got Matt’s house in California, Wollard’s house in Gainesville, and Suburban Home in Denver. I know its kind of scattered, but it’s really all I’ve got, and I’m cool with that. It’s the way I choose to let it be. It’s how I want it to be.

In a few days I’m going to be flying to Indiana to meet back up with Austin Lucas to get ready for the next tour that starts next week. This next tour will be about 35 shows total divided up into to groups of 3 weeks. I get some time off in between, but during that break I’m going back to Canada to do a week or so with yesterday ring and Colin Moore. Austin and I will be covering most of the country with Two Cow Garage (another Suburban Home band). I’m positive it’s going to be one hell of a good time.

My only big problem thus far is that I’m losing track of the days and the weeks. I caught myself asking someone what month we were in again the other day. It’s a bit odd, fixating so hard on every day and every show with new faces and old friends, new places, led by old familiar roads, "what state are we in?" . . . "what time zone?". . . "is it still Tuesday?" and at the same time trying to stay abreast of what each coming month and week will bring. Right now I’m trying to fill holes in my touring schedule for late August, November and early December. Adding to this confusion, my other band, Gunmoll, has decided to play The Fest in Gainesville this year at the end of October…. So I get to work that into the equation as well. Don’t get me wrong, like I said, I’m happy as hell to be doing this… Given this opportunity. I think that I’m starting to go a little crazy that’s all. It’s starting to make sense to me why some of my close friends that do this for a living are so bat shit crazy.