Fucking Hamilton, ON!!!

Hamilton, ON
Fuck yeah, Hamilton. Home of Haymaker. I expected complete stupidity and insanity from these people. I also expected to potentially have the opportunity to acquire a haymaker shirt via trade from someone. My buddy Caleb from Circle Takes The Square, and his girlfriend Shannon came to the show. 2 of my favorite people in the world. Total sweethearts. They came to rage too, Caleb had been drinking since like 2 pm.
Nothing insane happened during the day other than the fact that our fucking bus almost caught on fire. Some hose came off on the generator at some point. There was gnarly smoke coming out of the fucking thing. Everyone was freaking out. It figured that something happened, cause the luck we've been having with buses on this tour was dogshit. I got all my shit done early for once today. After the shit that happened in London the night before i wasn't about to take any chances with numbers getting fucked up, so I allowed some time for errors. I was glad this didnt happen and I had a lot of fuck off time.
Unfortunately i couldnt find anything good to do, so i sat in the dressing room trying to find the internet somewhere. No dice. I chain smoked my afternoon away and that was about it. The show was relatively uneventful, until Caleb and Shannon swung by. I had no clue they were even coming. I was pumped, cause they were my raging buddies on the tour we did with them last year. There weren't any incidents other than the racism fight, which i couldnt get a grasp on. I just know i saw some kid punching another kid and it was apperently over some racist shit. No clue, but i'm pretty impressed by the amount of fights i've seen on this tour.
After I loaded out, i took a quick shower, and went back to the bus. Andrew was drunk and wanted to go out, so we went down to the bar where Caleb and Shannon were. We met a bunch of their friends, had some drinks and just hung out and had a rad time. We also all managed to get hammered. I thought i was gonna have an oportunity to get a Haymaker shirt, but this kid wanted my Buzzcocks shirt, and that just wasn't gonna happen. We drank as late as possible, and realized our bus call was in 5 minutes.
We bolted out the door and took off down the street. We almost missed bus call, Or at least Alex, Tom, and I did. It was also pouring rain on our way back, which was a bummer.
When we got back on the bus, we all still wanted to drink. I found a Dos Equis buried in our ice chest. I have no idea where it came from, but at this point I didnt care. A few nights before, we were given a gift by the promoter. It was a bottle of "good" scotch. Bullshit. It tased like Bacon Whiskey. Tucker apparently thought so, cause he took a shot of it, and threw up in a solo cup. then he booted on the bus a couple times. He was a trooper though. I was a good buddy, and helped him out. After that, i stayed up texting JessiAnne til i fell asleep. Good day, for sure.

London Calling

After the 2 days off, i was pretty stoked to go back to work. Well, not today, cause it was another Venue sell. That meant not doing any work all day. I kinda putzed around all day, because i wasn't feeling well, and just felt like chilling. I did my count in and stuff, and just relaxed in the dressing room. Dinner was fucking epic, though. They had chocolate bread pudding for dessert. It was fucking incredible. Mercedes came and hung out at the show for awhile. She brought her sister, and her friend Ivy, which was cool. I hadn't seen Morgan in a really long time, so it was cool she came out. I guess Mercedes and Alex had some sort of issue cause she wound up leaving early, which was a bummer, cause i felt like i didnt get to kick it with her too much. When the show was over, it took me fucking forever to settle. The dudes who counted me in were like fucking beavis and butthead, total idiots. The one dude looked like the godfather of Hair Metal. Total meth tooth lookin dude. I mean like he had baked beans instead of teeth, gross. I also don't think that the guy was capable of constructing a sentence more than 6 syllables long. The other kid was just a total fucking mouthbreather. Either way, they fucked up counting me out. Twice. I settled, and had loaded half of my shit out. At this point the weather changed from snow to freezing rain and back to snow, so loading down icy steps was kickass. Then having to go back in and doing it all over again made it even better. I flipped out on the dude who was the venue's rep, and he blamed it on his computer. He didnt appreciate it when i told him it was the person using it, not the computer's fault. After flipping my shit and packing the trailer, i thought i'd wind up going out, but instead i just hung out with Andrew, Mo, and Geoff on the bus. That was a little more fun. Alex wound up missing bus call and got grease spotted.

Millenium Drive. Part Deux.

After getting back to the bus after out Casino/Stripclub experience, we just crashed out. I woke up the next day and we were still going across the frozen tundra, zig zagging through mountains, and darting around lakes. We unfortunately had to bid farewell to our bus driver, Jerry, today. He was kickass, and got the Strongman award for the tour for handling that shitty drive. We switched over to our new driver, Scott, in London. Nothing too crazy happened on the drive. It was pretty crazy how fast people go on a 2 lane road though. Big rigs were fucking flying past us going the other way, on some wicked sketchy roads. We just did our best to not pay attention and sleep our way through it. I can't remember if it was this day or the day before that we watched European Vacation. I know it was one of the two. I'm sure it was irritating with me and Alex reciting the entire movie start to finish. When we got in to London, we got our hotel room,and tried to figure out what to do for the night. Alex's ex, and my friend, Mercedes lived there,so we decided to meet up with her later on. Since we hadn't spent enough time together over the previous 48 hours, we decided to go out to dinner at this Italian place next to the hotel. Holy shit was it incredible. i had Mushroom Risotto, and it was fucking next level. Andrew got the Gnocchi. We split both of them, and it was awesome. We also drank about 5 bottles of wine at dinner. it made going back into the cold weather not as bad, since we were a little warmer. Mercedes convinced us to go to 80's night with her. It was deece, lots of knuckleheads there, but it was fun. I knocked back a few, and just kicked it with Mercedes, and acted like dickheads with the dudes while they were there hanging out. afterwards, we went back to the bus, and slept. it was real exciting.

Millenium Drive.

So after 2 days in Winnipeg, the shit part of the tour hit. A 2 day, 1400 mile drive. Across the snowy plains of Central Canada. Not awesome. The roads were shitty, our bus was cold, and it was 9 dudes primed for cabin fever. The only upside was that we were able to smoke on the bus, and our driver, Jerry was the fucking man.
I missed my cousin's wedding in Florida, which was a total bummer, but i had a bunch of updates from my mom throughout the early part of the first day. I hope it was awesome for him, i was pretty bummed i couldn't be there. I was bummed to not be in Florida in general.
We did a lot of movie watching,and dick and fart joke telling the first night, while we hauled ass to our mid point, Sault St. Marie. When we got there, of course, it was cold and snowy, as was par for the course at this point. A bunch of us went to a Bar/Strip Club called Studio 10. The upstairs of the place was a "Hotel". I call it a "Brothel". Either way, it was like a normal bar, but with naked ladies. Some of the dudes got dances, i just hung and drank. At least until last call when we saw a sweet fight. Some customer touched a stripper in her bathing suit area. This broad did not need an adult, because she hit him, then straight up knocked out his friend. The fight kept going because the dancer and her steakhead friends kept coming back in the bar, and fighting more. the security was terrible in this place, but it was apparently also a Hell's Angels bar. After escaping the wrath of security, we went to a Casino, where i lost 15 bucks, and at a massive omelet. We returned to the bus where i promptly passed out, lamenting the next 12 hours ahead of us when we woke up.
More on day 2 of the drive soon. I have to go do merch dude work.

Day off/ Winnipeg

Day off.
+bro time on the bus
+mad booze drank on the bus
+band dinner
+awesome hangs with Jessi Anne

Winnipeg.
+Venue sell
+hung out w/ J.A. 2 days in a row!!!
+excellent catering (brussel sprouts!!!)
+best gifts i've gotten in a while

this was my favorite 2 days in a long time. i am stoked on life. it's a shame we left to drive 2700 miles after the show. if i'd have had the cash, i'd have flown to london. for real. shit, yo. next update tomm. i'm almost caught up. there will be a picture entry at the end of tour, promise.

Edmonton.

Edmonton was...
-fucking insanely freezing.
-the coldest date yet.
-the purveyor of world's worst burrito
-home of the nicest bank teller
-also home to a sweet girl named lauren.

edmonton is the home of the oilers. it is also fuuuuuuucking cold. nothing incredibly exciting happened here, except for awesome catering and a 2 mile walk to get champagne and guinness. lauren was real nice, but would have been nicer if she'd driven me and alex to see the northern lights after the show. I lost my sunglasses because andrew wore them, and i left them in the dressing room. i lied and said it was my birthday today. i made 120 bucks. i was stoked. still am. the drummer for rise against might as well be John C. Reilly, because he looks just like him, and acts the same. Yeah, i said it. Great dude. Overall, tour is rad, and i'm stoked for tomorrow's day off.

*- his entry was posted after the day it happened...a couple of them actually.

Calgary.

Today was the first day that it felt bitterly cold. Me and Mo took a walk to the mall, about 15 minutes long. We got there and felt frozen. There were kids working in this mall that looked like they were fucking 12, dude. No shit. I guess if you can drink at 19 you can work at 12, fuck it. Anyways, we sat around and drank coffees, and found out about the casino. We also cabbed it back to the venue because we are giant pussies. The show was fine, and there were no major issues. I was finding out at this point that Canadians truly become total dicks when they drink. There are obvious exceptions to this rule, my friends.
Sean Avery got suspended by the NHL, so i didnt bother going to the Stars/Flames game. It was pretty punk calling Elisha Cuthbert "Sloppy seconds" though.
The show was packed. There were a million kids buying Rise Against shit. Kids waited in line for over an hour. Some girl spit on their merch dude, Buck. He has shitty luck with kids. I had a dude try and fight me over 5 fucking dollars tonight too. Some people don't like to pay for anything i guess. Fuck him, at least he didnt spit on me, cause i'd have probably killed him.
When my night was over, i decided to go out since we had a late bus call. After the show i was walking around, and went to a couple bars, and the casino. I definetly got propositioned by a hooker. That hooker was definitely a dude. The chick had a dick, fo sho. That was how my night ended, getting propositioned by a dude dressed like a chick, for expensive sex. Boooooo Canada, boooo to you. JK, i love it up here.

Sand in my Regina pt 2.

So nothing really amazing happened during the show. We sold some shit. I talked some shit. No one tried to make me sniff their vagina phone, so that was cool. However, I saw one of the most amazing beatings of my life. Some dude got socked for doing something un-Canadian, and got pounded for like 10 seconds. It was loud as fuck, i heard him getting hit loudly, from like 30 yards away. Real boring. I felt bad for the kid who got beat up, i wound up finding out he wasn't even the dude that should have gotten punched. After summer bummer.

It's so cold...

So here i am, in Regina, Saskatchewan. It is mind numbingly cold out today. Like 15 degrees cold.
The show last night was funny. The drinking age is 19, so obviously it was fucking amateur hour. I thought that like 5 kids were gonna vomit all over my merch. There was also the girl who held her phone in the front of her jeans, you know, in her bathing suit area. Either way, it rang, got her stoked, and then she was trying to get me to smell her phone. In front of her boyfriend, of course. Gross. There was also a ton of huge frat dudes trying to fight each other, calling each other faggots. It was nuts.
For the most part, everyone was nice, and it was chill. I wasn't too busy last night, so that was cool. We all just wound up hanging out after the show in the dressing room. The crazy meth head local dudes that we met at the bar the other night never showed, so we counted our blessings. I can only imagine how raged those guys would have been. They probably would have tried to hustle everyone with their card tricks, like they tried to do to us.
This morning i woke up after freezing my ass off all night. Got some shit at wal mart, and am now sitting here, killing time until load in. i'll have a fun story at some point i'm sure. i'll probably post again in like an hour, cause i'm fucking bored out of my mind.

Day 1- Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

Today was the travel day. I didn't sleep. Left Baltimore at 615, and took a train to Newark, NJ. Then took a monorail to the Newark airport. Met up with my Thursday homies, and went inside. From there, i sat forever waiting to get my boarding pass, then got on my plane to Toronto. Went through customs, and got some food. Purchased the shittiest sandwich I've eaten in a long time. I mean real bad. Not worth 7 bucks at all. Got on the plane to Saskatoon, and crashed immediately. The lack of sleep totally caught up with me. I woke up with an hour left, got a mini bottle of wine, watched Flight Of The Conchords, and chilled. Today was the first drug free day of flying i've had in a while.
After getting off the plane we got our bags and went to the Hotel. Me and Tucker are rooming together tonight. Put the two wiseasses together, I guess. We got some dinner. I ate a Bison burger, that was pretty good. The gravy fries killed it. I can't wait for poutine. Afterwards, we hung out with some locals, and got beers. We guestlited all of them for the show tomm night. They were talking about coke and meth and all kinds of wild shit. It seems like they get redneck fucked up here. Either way, we had fun. It was pretty cool. Everyone was super nice, minus the dudes who tried to fight me, Tucker and Andrew. Apparently we are fagots everywhere.
Right now, i'm drunk and typing an unexciting journal entry. Time for sleep. Peace, young niggas.