Day1:
My Blog Babies,

So here we set out on our annual California How’s It Gonna Go Down This Time Make Us Happy Summer Tour, and it gets good before we even get on the road. Fast Computers’ drummer and all around smiley person, Jennifer Fox, is on hiatus for this one. Replaced by the comic and percussive stylings of one Peter Nochisaki. Brenna (don’t get me started) is still at the Woodlawn Promises Rehabilitation Center working on her “problem” (don’t have her over until you hide all the rubbing alcohol. THAT’S ALL I’M GOING TO SAY). The perpetually peppy Andrew Stern, however, is rock solid on the bass guitar as ever. So what yer looking at, avid fan, is the most testosterone-filled Fast Computers you’ve ever seen (and likely ever will). BOOM!

We hit the ground running with a nice stop at our tour staple: The Burger Barn in Dunsmuir, California. The Burger Barn lady “acted” like she didn’t recognize us, even though we gave her a copy of our album last time AND she promised to get us on the main stage of the Dunsmuir Days festival. Never got that call.

Following our “burgeur luncheon” (as Peter N described it), digestive strife hit all three of the middle-aged men riding in the Computers’ tour van. So we swore off the Burger Barn forever and resolved to get a nice big bottle of Maalox at the next exit.

The next exit wound up being our stop for the evening, loverly Sacramento, California (or “the place I got HPV from a drinking fountain,” as Andrew calls it). We loaded in to the legendary Old Ironsides then Andrew and I set out to find said Maalox (as well as a CA branch of Rite-Aid and their wonderfully cheap liquor prices). Once happening upon an extension of the nation drug store chain Andy and I made our selections, for him it was a nice bottle of Glenlivet, for me Tanqueray. Making our way to the check out, the semi-toothless 40-something hag behind the counter had the audacity to throw some haphazard flirtatious comment towards yours truly. Listen up California, I know you think the world revolves around you, but let’s have a little reality check and realize that, even in a perfect world, a frizzy haired sometimes-tweaker checkout worker at Rite-Aid stands not a chance with a touring musician in his extremely early 30s who masks potentially fatal alcoholism with pathetic attempts at wit in an poorly conceived English accent. COME ON!

The show was awesome. Night Night was the best, and Pets blew our minds. O.I.’s Jerry Perry, despite the ill conceived hot sauce product hocked by his namesake (and one time respectable member of Aerosmith) Joe, is a prince amongst men. We retired to Night Night Dana and his wife Skye’s home for a wonderful evening of banter, kitty love and coffee cake. I fell asleep to the sound of Peter N calling out “98, 99, 100!” as he did curls with Skye’s half pound dumbbells.

Day 2:

We gathered our things and packed back into the van for a nice little drive down CA-99 to Bakersfield, home of our long time friends Gary and Courtnie of the Dalloways. Halfway through out 4 hour drive Peter N screamed. Apparently he was not enjoying the “mix” Andrew and I were creating by alternately playing small snippets of ironically bad songs on each other’s iPods. He endeavored to create the penultimate playlist whilst I played the first 15 seconds of the Pointer Sisters’ Jump.

We rolled into Bakersfield with Queen’s Hammer To Fall (from Peter N’s aforementioned playlist no less) blasting out of the van’s speakers. Once at Gary and Courtnie’s house we, of course, proceeded to have some cocktails while our hosts introduced us to their cats, Clementine and Cotti. While Clementine was a wonderful little feline, Cotti had the distinction of being born with an enormous face. But that didn’t distract from his awesomeness.

We ate at a lovely little Thai place. I sat across from Andrew and couldn’t help but describe out loud what I saw on the wall behind him. It was a giant horse made out of emeralds, surrounded by naked dancing gypsy’s bathing in the waterfall that came out of the horses mouth. In the sky above the horse and gypsies was a huge fish made out of clouds and dreams that was about to eat a planet for the good of it’s karma. Inside the horse’s eye was an entire Thai village that had been banished by the gods. When Andrew finally turned around to see the painting I had been describing he immediately gasped, then started crying blood. Peter N, shrewd negotiator that he is, haggled with the restaurateur and manager to buy the painting to add to his already considerable Thai art collection.

Our venue for the evening, The Silverfox, was a favorite of ours from a few years back so we couldn’t be happier to be back there. An old rummy sat watching some documentary about John Lennon on one of the bar TVs. He kept repeating: “Damn it, John. Why couldn’t you just shut up and play your guitar? Why’d you have to get all political?” Sage words indeed.

Back at G&C’s we broke out the Wii. I proceeded to make the ugliest Mii in history. It looked like Emperor Palpatine but with a big bushy mustache, old lady eyelashes, glasses and a big beauty mark. I, of course, named it Andrew. After a few rounds on the virtual links we all headed off to sleepy time with dreams. I, however, had a tough time catching any shut eye for fear that I would wake up and find an enormous cat face staring me down.

Links:
Fast ComputerSpace
Another Ugly Mii