Home Away from Home

I think sleeping on things that aren't meant to be slept on is fine and all, I mean after a night of Sparks and Old Style who is one to complain really? It's when sleeping on such surfaces induces dreams of this nature that I tend to not sleep at all and wake up worse off than I began. All I really remember (thank god) is that I was in Arizona and climbed to the TOP of some extremely large plateau where the perception of being that high was quite frighteningly accurate. What were my intentions of scaling such a mountain? To jump off naturally. I don't remember the fall as much as I do the pain when I landed and the worse part of it was - the rest of Rumi were my doctors. Kia was attempting to carry my broken body to some kind of operating room where then the surgery began. This is the second time I've dreamt about being operated on (poorly) and the mind can play some funny games on you when it comes to believing what you feel - unfortunately I have found out. My shoulder was dislocated and I believed a few broken ribs as well, really I was lucky to survive the whole 5000+ft free fall (actually now that I think a little bit more, I DID have a parachute but didn't open it until about 100ft before impact and Brett was the one who told me to pull the chord) but I was in some intense pain. Kia and someone else brought me into a porch looking room where things were put up against my chest and opened up...I'll spare the details but they did stop midway and left me in the height of agony - at which point I started to walk around myself and walked straight into the party from last night! No one seemed to be bothered by my state or the fact I was naked, luckily I woke up and realized the pain from the fall was REALLY the pain in my shoulder from sleeping on a chair. Funny how these things work.

Besides nightmares of botched surgery, ARKANSAS IS FUCKING AWESOME. The people here have an air of friendliness about them that us NY'ers aren't accustom to back North, and a heart for hospitality that can only be admired. This is Rumi's second time staying with Scott, I wasn't there for the first when we toured through the South, but while doing the dishes yesterday Kia discovered the only post-card on Scott's fridge was from him. We can't thank you enough for letting us use your 3 couches, 2 aero mattresses, arm chair and gym mats.

When we arrived two days ago, we pulled up to Russelville with 2 cases of beer (it's a dry county) in our space ship esque Dodge 3500 after a very very long drive. Somewhere during the travel we changed time zones, got corn dogs, ate way too much Subway, read too much Dune, and Brett slept for nearly 20 hours consecutively. This did not affect our demeanor to party.

Scott welcomed all of us and gave us a tour of his incredible gear collection; ranging from vintage amps, guitars, bases, boutique petals, organs, and then to an original version of Jack White's guitar. Our minds were blown in the first few minutes of arrival and were diverted from the perils of the open road. We all started to drink and people started to pile in through the door like any other night (as we were told) and the 8 of us mingled in with the crowd.

I found myself at a square table in the kitchen with the locals watching 6 dice being thrown about. They all seemed to be getting real excited about it so I decided to enquire what the fun was all about. They simply said,

"Farckle", to which I replied: "Farckle??", to which they replied, "Farckle!!!!!".

I put the dice in my hand and within the first couple of rolls I manage to roll some crazy variation that no one even knows how many points it was worth. There seemed to be a big commotion over this and Kia shouted from across the room, "Leave it to Justin to do something in the first minute that no else knows what the hell to do with!". Afterwards I slowly start to understand Farckle's intricacies and begin a real game with my new friends. Harrison shortly there after walked by the Farckle table and asked,

"Whatcha' doing?" I said, "Playing Farckle." Harrison inquired, "Farckle??" and I said, "YES, FARCKLE," to which he replied - "What the fuck is Farckle?", to which I said "Sit down."

So Harrison sat down - not being able to resist the allure of such a game and he too learned the ways from Emily and Nate (THANK YOU FOR SHOWING US FARCKLE!!!!). This is when the fun began and the shouting and more drinking and somewhere amongst that Derek (Wing) ended up joining since he IS a natural born hustler. I didn't have the same luck I began with but we were all screaming and enjoying ourselves. After about 20 minutes some 'piff came about in a small bowl and about 5 minutes after that some 'piff came about in the form of what I deemed a "Snoop". The dimensions of this blunt were: roughly the circumference of a tangerine and the length of - wow that's kinda big. At this point I think we all slipped into the grooves and cracks of this place and felt as if we had a home.

After Farckle was ended by Emily pwning all of us, Harrison, Derek (Wing) and myself ran into the far bedroom to find Brett singing INTERPOL on rock band. When we get the video up for this, you shall see for yourself why we were all dying.

Hours had gone by until we all felt our stomachs grumble from the day full of eating rest stop food - something had to be done and a food expedition was formed. Kia returned with a s'moogeshboard of burrito materials and got to the pan. All these freshly chopped veggies, simmering veggies, simmering meat; the smell wafted into the bedroom where Brett and I were still glued to rock band. We jumped up and ran to its source were the other 6 were "eating" (by eating I mean devouring) this delicious smelling meal. The package of tortilla's was large but we managed to leave no tortilla behind. Everything was 'numed up and it was getting pretty late. I had to secure something to sleep on and jumped to the nearest couch. Luckily for me I somehow lost my blanket and pillow (yes, it was floral - that doesn't change the fact I miss it and have gone very cold without it), so I resorted to using my jacket as my only means of warmth for the night.

A few hours later I woke up around 9:30am not being able to sleep very well or accumulate much heat, found myself sitting up in a chair by the slit of sunlight beaming in from the window. I read Dune for a while until Brett wakes up and we give the van a much needed cleaning together. Kia runs out when were done, saying he needs to sleep in the van because the floor is rough. By this time people are waking up one after another and soon were all groogy and somewhat conscious together.

The weather outside is beeeauuutiiiifullllll (t-shirt status), so we band together and start walking down Arkansas Rd - to where? No one is quite certain. One thing we are certain of is no one really walks much 'round dese her' parts and the 8 of us don't look too indigenous if you catch my drift. ATM's, mailboxes, train whistles, these things all happen until Derek (Wing) decides he needs eggs and doesn't care where he's getting them from.
I almost join the group walking back to the house, but decide I want to walk around further and see what Arkansas has to offer.

We locate somewhere here that serves breakfast at 1:30pm, this isn't as easy as it sounds - and after passing about 30 barber shops consecutively we arrive at The Old South. Egg's are had, biscuits, country gravy, bologna, bacon, everything they could dream of. I had a soup which was okay, but the 'cuit was quite delectable. Harrison, Carl, and Derek (Wing) enjoyed there long sought after meal and we begin our trek back to the house.

Unfortunately for us the other group of people, including Scott, had left to go get food of their own and we were locked out on the front porch. Sitting there wasn't something to complain about, it was breezy and still hot outside and we had some music on our phones. "Brick" was played and Carl and I had a moment.

Hours of lounging out at Scott's (aka. Ryan and I looking at hot Isreali girls in uniform ((EVERYONE NEEDS TO STOP FUCKING FIGHTING)) on the internet amongst other random things) came to an end when Kia barrelled through the front door cursing. This we found out, was about shows in Colorodo that fell through for such and such reason...we all hope that situation is going to work out itself out. There's talk of a Frat party we might play at in Boulder? Who knows....We gather 'round into the van and start heading towards the show:

The Godbey is the practice space of Fashion Show (what upp, you guys rocked!!!!!) and turned out to be an awesome place to play. From the outside all you can see if the HUGE street number on the front brick, and thats it. You walk inside to a warehouse type room with very high ceilings with random ornaments hanging from it, then a stage set towards the back with a back loading room. We empty out the van (fuck) and bring in all our equipment, set up merch, talk to everyone there that we met last night, and figure out how to get beer for the night (it's still a dry county). Luckily Mark from Fashion Show hopped in the van with myself and Harrison and we took off towards the next county were some guy was getting blow-torched on television by a witch doctor.

Getting back, FAT ON SPEED was just beginning to rock and rock they did. The Test Dream played and they were okkkaayy (just joshing, ayuck yuck), Harrison when he rocks out too hard and breaks strings we learned - only rocks out harder. As Rumi started to set up, Scott goes outside and yells "COPS!" (everyone was drinking) so they would all come back inside. We play, me and Ryan do a little dance as he joins for pretty much every song, and great times are had. Thanks for The Test Dream video taping us again, we reaaallly appreciate it.

Again back at Scotts; I find a buyer for the 15.8g's of boomers I somehow acquired and no longer wished to travel with (we heard cops west of here in Oklahoma and esp. Texas are BAD) since we are 8 mostly bearded fellows traveling in a conspicuous white van and trailer with NY plates. Party time again, everyone is back here and then some from last night and more Farckle goes down. This time it is interrupted by the fact we have to unload the entire trailer to detach it from the van (our brakes need work) so we can drop it off at a mechanic overnight. This proves annoying and during the process we realize every single one of us had all stepped in something awful. We clean our shoes, unload more, more everyyything inside the house for the night and resume the Old Style brews and good times. This time we all pretty much end up staying awake 'till after five, with long conversations being carried out without end. All of us by the end of the night felt immersed in the Arkansas kind kind way of heart and manor, and made our way to our couches and respected sleeping arrangements.

Aaaannnnd now here I am, everyone is awake and Scott is talking about faggin' out with a kitchen full of people. Myself? Cold, can barely feel my hands and have a stomach full of Arkansas love.

- Sketch