December 1

December 1 was not a good day for me. The night before---after falling in dirty creek water, I arrived back at Orlando’s house to find my laptop missing. The whole day I felt so miserable. The idea that someone would come over to a party and socialize with people whose possessions they were planning to steal makes me sick. Stolen along with my laptop were our friend Jaki’s video camera and Dave’s hoodie. I couldn’t sleep after I had found out. Thoughts of peoples’ profiles were whizzing around in my head like rampant bees, buzzing and pricking my brain with their untrustworthy stingers. It was a case of mental “whodunnit?” that continued all night and to no avail. I woke up and finally called the search party off; those items were nowhere to be found in the house. Orlando promised that he would call everyone he knew and get to the bottom of the matter. He was very kind for letting us stay at his house and he felt very bad for being the host of such misfortune. After rolling up our sleeping bags and waiving goodbye, we went to eat lunch at this amazing restaurant called “Mellow Mushroom”; a psychedelic infused atmosphere with a menu full of delicious pizzas and sandwiches. I tried to stay hopeful as I waited for my gargantuan sandwich to arrive, sucking back a few strong beers like tears in the process. They had this massive mural of Dr. Gonzo and Raul Duke from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas tearing down the savage desert of Eastern California in the red shark, but the characters were mushrooms with twisted eyes and limbs; one of the best paintings I have ever seen. The drive to Orlando, FL was easy and I jotted down some things in my notebook since I had no laptop to capture them. We played a club called the Social---a well-kept and hospitable venue very familiar to us. It is right on this drag of bars and restaurants with towering downtown buildings just further down. It is so interesting to walk the streets and see the wild mix of people interacting together there. You can count on seeing slick business-suited men with shiny penny loafers waiting at stoplights next to the hunched over crumpled souls of the homeless, jabbering quietly to themselves through their crooked yellow teeth or Bluetooth cell phones. None of these people came to our show, but they could be found at any time weaving in and out of the businesses like construction cones. I was delighted when some of the kids from Gainesville arrived at the show with all 3 stolen items. They had found the crook, a female that I remember vividly showing up to the house the night before. They said she was known as the “klepto” of Gainesville, and finding her guilty of such injustice was not hard to do. So thankfully I am now back, plugging away at my keyboard with an appreciation for all those who helped me get it back. The show was a lot of fun and there were some really cool Fear fans there that we talked with. When we play the Social we always eat at this tasty pizza place connected to it, and we did just that; munching away at gooey slices of thin crust and listening to the diverting stories of passing vagabonds. We stayed with our friend Jeff and his very attractive girlfriend in a single room with 2 cats and all 3 bands. It was quite the slumber party.