ha! rust belted!

RUST BELTED
Let’s see, where were we? Ah yes, Cleveland rocks. As does medina, rocking with relaxation and the amazing hospitality of horst and mary, erik’s parents and proprietors of the SKI LODGE EAST. The fed us ribs and potatoes and german egg noodles and red cabbage kraut and ice cream and off we went to play the beachland tavern with very full bellies. A far more talented musician joined us that night, but alas only to watch and not participate: aaron’s muse and collaborateur Emily made the trip from Portland to jump in the van with us for a few days before joining family in the hills of Pennsylvania. She arrived in true rock star fashion, delayed in Chicago for 4 hours before being picked up and whisked back across town by Erik and aaron mere minutes before we were scheduled to play. There were no delays in the night’s proceedings but there was tension and anticipation in the air, punctuated by the yells of erik’s hometown friends, demanding his whereabouts. The tavern was packed with said loud friends and erik’s family of all ages, both onstage and off, giving the hen a seriously raucous welcome vibe.









Once onstage some of us were still leaden with good food, but I think we gave the people what they came here for. They sure liked our souvenir stand, and helped keep us in gas money at least until new york. A late-night drive through downtown Cleveland under flashes of heat lightning brought us back to a relaxing late evening on horst and mary’s patio under clearing skies and blankets of crickets.
Everyone slept in late on Saturday morning as I think we were all pretty reluctant to slide off the lap of luxury and back in to the van. it was just a quick few hours’ hop across the border into Pittsburgh and before we knew it we were being welcomed by our next amazing host and benefactor, dave k.—yet another old pal of erik’s. I could waste gigabytes of space describing how much I love Pittsburgh, from its hills to it’s rickety crammed-together old row houses, to all the amazing old brick buildings and churches towering over everything, to the toothy, slightly-dangerous but ultimately-friendly tough-guy vibe of the place, to the decay among the renaissance, but that will have to do. Just find a reason to go and keep an open mind.
After a tasty meal of burgers, perogis, bacon sandwiches and chicken-walnut salad at the hip BRILLO BOX we headed to our next venue, GOOSKI’S TAVERN, in the equally aptly-named ‘polish hill’ neighborhood. Gooski’s is a touring bar-band’s sticky wet-dream: a long narrow loud dirty rock and roll joint with a packed bar up front and the stage closing out the full width of the back room. Not too many of the barflies came back to see us play but we had good local support with dave k., his wife Jennifer, their pal steve, dr. vipul and his pitt posse, and even a few Carnegie mellon students brought by Portland-native zoe pinfold. We played loud and sloppy but really had a blast this time around, everyone but dave going offstage at some point during the songs. The other two bands, LOVECRAFT (from Winston-salem n.c.) in the no.1 slot and locals PERSONA GRATA in the last slot, were both very entertaining and pretty humbling—especially persona grata, giving everyone a clinic on ballistic surgical rock-precision.
Nobody wanted any merchandise this time around, but all the indifferent barflies dutifully paid their $5 cover, so the house was generous to us.
But that was no match for the surreal, twisted generosity of dave k. after the show. By his unsteady hand there were rooftop conferences, long climbs up city staircases, abandoned churches, haunted mansions, and no sleep until 5am.













What a guy—long live dave k. and Jennifer and their 3 cats! it think I caught a cold but it was worth it, dammit.


After a kielbasa/egg/American cheese breakfast sandwich we’re now heading through painfully beautiful Pennsylvania countryside on route to Williamsport, home of the little-league world series and aaron’s old friend eric, (aka ‘flip’, aka ‘earl’) our next angel of mercy and proprietor of kimball’s site of our next act of …er hemorrhage.