for buffy fans...

Stunning vloggage forthcoming, featuring shondes missions to important television landmarks in LA. Here's a preview photo. If you know where we are, we might just give you a prize/////

Urgent Dispatch: Wrong Bread.

In a grievous error, Eli tired of organic bread inspection at a Whole Foods in LA and chose a variety that has only now (midway through Arizona) revealed itself to be The Wrong Bread. It smells. And it is far too "natural-style." In a rare interview, Temim informed me, from the front seat that it is "a bit moldy-tasting, with a wet banana overtone, reminiscent of a tupperware that hasn't been opened in 4 months and has a few drops of tepid water inside." Fruchter then went on: "Wanna bite?"

oh ok.

Here's our beloved Bruin. Taking pics of himself at the show:



And without further ado, Eli versus the Water Glass:



And some other pics from the show we played at Annie's Social Club:

San Francisco

1.) We love Bruin.
2.)We met the venerable Larry Bob!
3.)One word: Gordonzola. Two words: Wookiee Hole.
4.)We've repaired our relationship with San Francisco due largely to #s 1-3 and well, the fact that we didn't get robbed of ALL OF OUR WORLDLY POSSESSIONS this time around.

Is that enough?

urgent dispatch, unbelievably beautiful sky

we were just treated to a beautiful pink sunset over the cascades. amazing. being on tour is such a treat.

Portland

urgent dispatch, the scent of the road

The 5 senses - sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing - we could probably write a little essay about each one and how we experience it on tour. Right now, though, I'm thinking about smells of the road, of gasoline, farms, factories, exhaust, tea tree oil, gum, cologne, sweat, slaughterhouses, trees, fresh mountain air, greasy diners and topical analgesics - it goes on and on. I never really thought about it until right now, but touring the country is sort of a tour of the nose.

urgent dispatch, rainforest edition

Louisa may have gotten us trailed by Ron Paul fanatics. Somewhat unprovoked, she exclaimed at a couple Paul-ites "I know about Ron Paul - I know that he's a fucking idiot!" This, they did not want to hear, and resulted in a lengthy description (yelled as we walked away) of how to 'google' Mr. Paul so that we might find out what "he's really about." We fear for our lives, people.

Additionally , Portland was the second place on our short/quick tour that we encountered Santa. By "Santa" we mean hundreds of people dressed as santa - sexy santa, drunken santa, half-assed santa - running through the streets.

Finally, we have just crossed the 45th Parallel. California, here we come.

Le Voyeur: Chanukah Night 4 in Oly

This is the menorah we lit together before Jenny Jenkins played, after amazing, moving spoken word performances from Dalya, Hava, and Sharon.


Jenny Jenkins was amazingly sweet and awesome, leading the audience in sing-alongs like "Sometimes I Sleep With Evil." We were honored to share this bill at Le Voyeur with her and the 3 amazing spoken word artists mentioned above.

We LOVED the audience's energy - singing along to The Start of Everything and dancing hard to Let's Go, and we met some great people. It even brought me to comment "now THAT dancing lives up to the Oly mythology of my youth!" THANK YOU! Happy Chanukah again!

The Start of Everything & WYSLMT: Live at the Croc

TSOE:


WSLMT:

Seattle

WE LOVE SEATTLE. For us, it's joined the ranks of the greats. Why did we enjoy our stay so much?

1) We got to play an amazing show at the historic Crocodile w/ H is for Hellgate and Ms. Led. Why is this so special? a)amazing sound tech + seperate monitor tech. how we love that! Not to mention about one million monitor mixes. b)the sound tech was so sweet and told us a trillion stories about show there - nirvana, rem, patti smith, etc. We're such music history nerds. c) the crowd was wonderful, including a JVP Seattle (Jewish Voice for Peace) contingent. d) the bands were great! how often do we get to play an ideal bill at a great venue WITH a big, loving audience? And on a Wednesday? It was truly a Chanukah miracle.

2)We ate The Best Vegan Food. Squid and Ink, The Globe, The Wayward Cafe (We're in band-love with Craig. He is now officially dubbed "the Mensch of the Northwest") and MIGHTY O DONUTS!!! (We went 3 times in 2 days. In total we consumed 28 donuts). We're in love. There were also biscuits and gravy like you can't imagine - warmed our freezing souls right up. (at multiple different restaurants - all EXCELLENT. WHAT? HOW?) Look! Pics of us at Mighty-O and Wayward!

3.) We got to hang out with great people though sadly we don't have pictures for the most part. Thanks so much to Heather, Naomi, Ethan, Ramsey, Eli and Ronni for housing (and hanging out)!


Here is one photo of lovely Chanukah festivities with JVP people:

HAPPY CHANUKAH!!!!

Big Sky Country Retrospective.

Nearing the insanity point somewhere in the fog at the montana/washington border, the band forced temim to read the menu of a late-nite vegan restaurant in Seattle OUT LOUD repeatedly. Our only comfort was the vision of hot soup at midnite when we were to arrive - just before Squid and Ink closed. Here are some pictures to help you understand the state we were in, but mind you, these pics are from BEFORE it got dark, and exponentially more insane. The food, notably the beer-cheese soup (VEGAN!) was warm and delicious. The first of many spectacular Seattle vegan meals.... who knew? And also, when did this become a food blog? Onto the retrospective:

Farewell, Midwest. Hello, vegan dinner.

Donuts in the arctic van:


Having survived a night of fun and Santas, we ate a wonderful brunch at Monty's Blue Plate Diner in Madison and headed for the Twin Cities. It was cold. 17 degrees on our arrival at the club in St. Paul. Not nearly as many Twin City-ites as expected braved the cold and snow to come to Big V's, but those who did were treated to a great show. This Again played a charged set of engaging songs with moving melodies - quite a feat for a one-man-band. And then Tough Tough Skin, adrenaline-in-the-good-way as always, exchanging Yiddishisms with us from stage. We then benefited from the wonderful hospitality of some of our favorite Minnesotans (thanks Jo, Steve and Allison!) when we had comfy warm places to sleep waiting for us, post-show.

***did we mention it's fucking cold here???***

But truly to the point: Here we are. We've been on I-90 for about 17 days (OK, two, but whatever) and are FINALLY in the vacinity of Seattle! Thank Hashem! First night of Chanukah and we're eagerly counting down the minutes 'til we can get vegan takeout, light the menorah, and bask in the wonderment of being-outside-of-the-van-where-there-is-a-mystery-rubber-fragrance.

The drive today has been spectacular. We started in Billings and drove through lots of really dramatic weather changes, mist, fog, heavy wind, ice, and mysteriously, kind of a sunny early spring minute. We hoped we'd see grizzly bears, but they were preoccupied.

santa retrospective

SANTAS

TEMIM AS SANTA

REACTIONS

Last Dispatch for Real I Promise

Okay, people. I'm very sorry to have to be telling you all this, but Temim has volunteered to abduct a Santa costume from the portion of the Santa convention staying across the hall. It started innocently, with the desire to entertain you, our faithful fans, with a picture of one of the Santa suits to prove our plight. Several hours later, however, the Santas still have not returned from their night of revelry, and Temim's soul has been crushed. Now Temim can't let go, and between intermittent dozing, perks up to ask, "are they out there?" every time there's a noise in the hall. Okay. It's done.

One Last Plea: Final Santa Prom Dispatch

If all else didn't convince you to rescue us...perhaps this revealing photo essay will (and yes, that's Tim Allen on our hotel television. no, it's not ok.):

SANTAS EVERYWHERE!!!!!

You must know that tonight, in Madison, there may or may not be a larger concentration of Santas, Mantas, one elf and one enormous pink creature with a conical head than EVER BEFORE. Eli and I ventured out into snowy Madison for a bite and instantly encountered MORE Santas. They were pouring - and I mean cascading, careening, at top speeds - out of an otherwise unassuming pub. In fact, we may well even have walked past the pub without a second glance. But a twinge of white pompom trim caught our otherwise-dinner-focused eyes made us stop and THERE THEY WERE. There were like seventy, or more likely, seventy thousand. I just don't know. One was offering me a pre-dinner sweet. I knew not what to say.

In other words: We found headquarters. It was jarring, unearthing, and like nothing before. We are back in the safety of the University Inn but things are pretty serious out there. It has driven us to watch Home Improvement reruns, if that's saying anything. Yeah, I know.

Update from the Santa Prom

We're still here, holed up in the hotel room, praying for dear life as the Santa Frat Party continues across the hall. Temim made a new sighting in the elevator: 2 girl santas and 3 mantas. When Temim said "what is this anyway? santa prom?" they laughed and said "yeah...we *should* call it santa prom," then provided no further clarification as to what "it" is...

help. if anyone's out there. we're in some sort of winter wonderland dystopia. help. please. we think we're playing a show tomorrow in st. paul. we can only hope that will resume some sense of normalcy to our world.

urgent dispatch from the midwestern front.

only REAL MEN©®™ will come out to our show in the wintry weather of Madison, WI... err, or at leasts that's how it went when we were on our way up, braving the snow/ice/rain/sleet/ice/rinse, repeat, etc... But alas, we arrived at our destination to find no lights, no booker and some bored (but very kind) bartenders hanging out. No Show.

We moved on and write this from a hotel room, where, across the hall there is a party of Santas (+1 elf). One of the kind, jolly fellows held the door for some of the band, prompting a Shonde to remark "well, I guess I'll stop telling the rest of the Jews bad things about Santa". Laughter erupted and Santa is on our side.