West Indian Girl

outside the amsterdam cafe with our new roadie

what a perfect day in vancouver. before the show lewscious, mariqueen and i walked a few blocks down to some marina. i watched a bunch of people playing with their dogs in the park and really started to miss tony. ironically, a little while later when i was checking my emails from a cafe i got word from gayle at the dog psychology center that cesar millan had actually picked tony to be in some publicity shots with him for the national geographic channel. that news made me so proud of my boy. i hope his photo shoot works out and i will, of course, post the pics when i get them. i’m still gushing with joy over my baby boy. anyway, speaking of the cafe i was at, well, i dont know how to best describe it but it was called the amsterdam cafe and if you cant guess from the name it was a pot friendly cafe. basically it was a cafe with a bunch of stoners in it that reeked of weed and seed. vancouver obviously has some pretty lax marijuana laws and i guess pot smoking is sort of “tolerated”. believe it or not i’m not a big pot smoker. i maybe smoke pot a few times a year and 9 times out of ten it’s when we’re recording bass parts or mixing in the studio. ok, i digress, back to the hippie hole.

i was starving so i ordered a cookie, not because i had the munchies but because i was just fucking starving. after i inhaled the cookie i started feeling weird and then thought to myself “holy shit – did i just eat a pot cookie?” hahah i was kinda freaking out cos i felt high but honestly i think it was just a slight contact buzz from all the smoke that was in the cafe. in the van ride back to the club rob kept fucking with me saying that there was pot in their cookies but everyone else said no. either way i had successfully weirded myself out just enough to make myself high out of pure paranoia. so i walk back into the club only to see ellen(in pic), my great friend from grad school. ellen immediately asks me if im ok cos i look freaked out and my eyes are all bloodshot. keep in mind i havent seen ellen in like 7 or 8 years and my first conversation with her is “i think i’m high cos i just ate this cookie at a marijuana cafe and i didnt know but i think there was pot in it…do they put pot in their cookies in vancouver and dont tell you…holy shit im gonna be so fucked up if this kicks in right about the time we go onstage…blah blah blah”. hahah so all this time i seriously feel like im stoned but maybe im not – i cant even tell anymore. i need a beer so i go slam one try to chill out and prepare to ride the wild horse that is about to carry me off on his back. we hit the stage and rock vancouver’s face off. it was beautiful. i have no idea if i was high but i wasnt completely not high. what a bizarre ride through our set. the vancouver peeps really warmed up to us and the club we played at richard’s on richards (dicks on dicks as i dubbed it) was pretty groovy. great stage and great people that worked there. thanx guys. and thanx to ellen for helping me work the merch booth after the show. it was crazy at one point and she was a blessing back there. ellen, it was awesome seeing you again and i cant wait til our next vancouver show.

Mariqueen’s Mind

The City: i’ve dubbed vancouver the san diego of canada. you are an outstanding city… golf claps all around. beautiful weather, beautiful people, beautiful 50 – 70% off signs on beautiful boutique windows. i walked around town with my canada party posse, mark and fran, and took a bunch of pictures. i’m really getting into my photography. it’s strange… i only like taking pictures of things and not people. i remember watching a special on hitler that was on the history channel (best channel on tv… get into it) and adolf was once a painter and he only painted landscapes and never people. there is also a rumor that he was an aries. fuck that. i bet he was a taurus/aries cusp. people on the cusp are just confused. wait wait wait… i do like taking pictures of people… certain people. a certain someone. my pumpkin, my lewscious… my muse. one day i will post a blog since i know the password to this shit and dedicate it to mark lewis. look for it in a month. get ready for a pictorial that will blow your mind. so yeah, vancouver’s rad.

The Venue: richard’s on richards. fran likes dick’s on dicks… how surprising. my personal favorite was mark’s… burton on taylor. genius. anyway, the venue was awesome. the layout was great… just check out the pictures i took and you’ll see what i’m talking about. they had a dj booth right behind the stage. great idea. the second floor was fabulous. if i ever wanted to design my dream bar, i would steal a lot of the layout ideas from richard’s. hey richard, good job.

The Show: it went great i guess. i don’t know… i gave the show a seven out of ten because i was ultra phlegmy that night. my body was still recovering from that brutal road trip i endured with fran and tommy. this show was also the start of my bruises. dude, i have the worst bone bruises on my left hand. i can’t help it though. when i’m up there and i’m playing, the last thing you want to see is an unenthusiastic tambourine player. i have more fun and i think i even sing better when i bang that bad bitch hard. i’ve also been prone to dance a lot more too. it was fun dancing at that show. i had a lot of tender band moments with everyone while we were performing. i don’t know if that’s the best idea for singing… dancing, not band moments… i start to get all breathy and exhausted and usually i dance really hard right before i need to belt it out. it’s just the progression of the song. i like how i’ve been totally straying from the subject on each section. i’m out of it today. you’ll find out about it in future show reports. stay tuned.

What Were You Thinking While Playing: i saw my good friend, the talented and hilarious, mr. nakamura (in pic) in the crowd and was ectstatic about it. most of the show i kept wondering about my vocals and hoping they were alright.

Interesting Things After The Show: even though we didn’t have a lot of canadian money, fran was sweet enough to amex it and the jaeger crew was in action for a minute. we did our do then fran had to man his merch table and lewscious had to go get lost in deep conversation with whoever he usually does. that night it was one of the loaders… he looked like an old hippie. a lot of people in vancouver look like old hippies. speaking of which… let’s talk about interesting things that happened before the show. we went to this cafe that was specifically catered to cannabis smokers. mmm. not so much. i only went to get some green tea and to actually witness what i thought was super impossible. the minute i got my green tea i was over it. i usually love the smell of great weed, i think it smells… beautiful. no really, beautiful. i don’t think there is a better adjective to describe the scent of fluffy dank. anyway, the smell in the amsterdam cafe was quite the opposite. it smelled like a wet tshirt and armpit. not happy. then we left and some guy who i swear looked like chong decided to step into a picture with us. now this guy totally looked like an old hippie. on acid. how’s this for interesting? when we were at the canadian border we got detained for what seemed like forever. apparently, they thought that mark was another lewis from new york. i think they should’ve just asked him for his middle name and social security number an hour earlier. i saw this poor asian woman get yelled at by some bitch working at the canadian border. she was asian too. wouldn’t that be crazy if she read the blog? hey you… you’re a fucking dumb asian bitch. you need to be nicer to people. you bitch. god, i hate power trippers. get over yourself. so you have the power to not let me into canada. oh no. maybe i’ll just turn around and hang out in seattle instead. how do you like that? bitch. i wish i could’ve spat in that girl’s face. she really pissed me off for being so mean to this meek little lady. anyway let’s not stray from the subject anymore, ok?

so yeah, after the show i got to hang out with my friend and his italian chum. since i didn’t get any drink tickets, they were kind enough to supply me with endless crowne and coke. mark, you’re the coolest kid ever. i can’t wait to see you again. super top notch. i also saw bunch of drunken patrons. everywhere. i even encountered a few. not into it. they should’ve reminded me of why i hate drinking and should stop in the first place… but i think carter put it best in his detroit show report when he said, “I’m not a big advocate of alcholism, I don’t drink because i think its cool, but it seems like sometimes on the road you need to have a drink just to stay sane, blow off the days stress. . .”… so anyway, after having a bunch of crownes and cokes and hanging out with my awesome friend i had some quiet time because i always need my space to reflect. then i went in and signed and smiled and hung out with phil from turin brakes and then eddie and then after my poor little west indian roadies were done i got to hang out with carter, tommy and mark. we smoked. we took pictures. we smoked some more and when everything was good and gone so were we. we stopped at a spot to grab some food since all of a sudden everyone was so hungry and while tommy and i were hanging outside smoking cigarettes and having a bit of a chat some guy stopped and decided to welcome me to vancouver. i thought it was kind of cute and sketchy at the same time. i mean, come on, it was like two or three in the morning. he was either up to something or vancouverans are just too rad for me to handle.

Carter’s Conscience
THE BUS RIDE ACROSS AMERICA – jumped on the bus for a three day trip to Vancouver. Turin Brakes flew from Minneapolis, and they were cool enough to let Mark, Rob, and I ride the bus. thanks gentlemen, that was very very much appreciated. So we would drive all night, then the bus driver stops and sleeps all day at a hotel, and then we get back in and drive all night, etc. troy, mark, and myself stayed up all night the first night on the bus, a bunch of insomniacs we are. I guess you could say we had a lot to talk about. . . Spent a day in Mile city Montana, checked out the “Kick ass hats” store, ( that is really the name) and ate at 4B’s. the next day I don’t know where we were, but it had a river, which I jumped in. That was a highlight. Thats pretty much it. I think Montana is pretty kick-ass! One day I’m gonna ride a horse across America. Dig it.

Vancouver– Why is it that Canadians seem to have so much common sense, compared to us Americans? I’m scratching my head. Environmentally conscious, socially tolerant, progressive-minded people, well-informed in global politics, etc. I’m obviously making disgustingly huge generalizations here, but pick up a Canadian newspaper and you’ll know what i’m talking about. The Us may be able to beat Canada in an arm wrestling match, but Canada will end up taking the foxy lady home at end of the night when the US gets too drunk and tries to fight someone.

The show– such a cool show! One of my favorites of the tour. The venue was great, this big ol theatre, the crew was so fucking nice! Helped us load all the equipment, the sound was great, they even put my pedalboard away for me. No one’s ever done that! We had a really good show, I think we really won the crowd over by the end, the energy in the room was great. And thats really cool considering that most people there probably hadn’t heard of us before, because you can only get our album as in import in Cananda as of this moment! Met a lot of really cool people after the show, and Rob was a champion and drove us across the border that night. Turin Brakes had an amazing show that night, they sounded great and had the crowd just rocking.

Random notes– Went to the Amsterdam cafe in Vancouver. Cool establishment, but stale pot smoke makes me want throw up after a while. I’m not a real coffee shop kinda guy, just not my thing i guess. I’m going to open a Vancouver cafe the next time I’m in Amsterdam, and not sell pot. Dig it

inside of the club during load in

lewscious and mariqueen’s shadow puppets

tommy + molson = happy canadian fans

lewscious lounging

F.TEN