2300 Jackson St

These past few days we've added a good 1500 miles on the van, hosted a couple of dance contests mid set, and Shiv freestyled for the first time. And that's just the beginning. For just four (admittedly far) shows, we had our fair share of adventure.

We set out on our mini-tour at 7am Monday making our way to Shiv's childhood summer camp in Rochester, NY to spend a day and a half. We got there, set up all our gear, did our band thing, kids did their kid thing, fun was had, dancing, campfires, group sing-alongs ensued as the night went on... considering I never went to overnight camp as a kid, it was like making up for lost time. Oh and it was my birthday on Tues and something about hearing 120 kids shout out 'happy birthday Karl' first thing in the morn made it totally bearable to be another year older. And tshirts were all sold out, that makes this band member happy enough to use emoticons:) fuel aint cheap and those kids fueled us for the whole tour, both literally and spiritually. f'n rad experience.

From there, we headed to Rochester, MI (close to the Canadian border) for our next show that Tues night. We opted to add a few hours to our trip and not take the shortcut over Lake Michigan/through Canada since we all didn't have passports; wise choice we felt. Anyways about 30 minutes away from the venue, I wake up to Avir driving the van dangerously close to Canada. Like border close. Fackin gps... the thing had basically led him past the point of no return onto the Ambassador bridge into Canada, where we made our accidental crossing into the waiting arms of the Canadian border police who proceeded to search our van full of brown dudes and equipment very, very thoroughly. These guys and girls were full body armoured, quite Storm Trooper-ish. We were searched, then processed; I had to sign papers saying god- knows-what since I wasn't born in the U.S., and we were sent back to the states where the same process started over again on the other side (but with fatter, slower cops). Of course we totally missed our show in the meanwhile... all this and it was still my birthday. Only one of the cops (on the Canadian side) wished me a happy bday. sigh.

Kalamazoo, MI and Lake Villa, Indiana followed that crazy night. In Michigan we stayed at our pal MC Imagery's house (that's where Shiv freestyled btw, at 2:20am Jul 15th, a rapper was born). And after Lake Villa, we decided to head home that night - 15 hrs back to jerz. As I was driving back that Fri morning, at about 2:30am we passed the road sign for Gary, IN. I took the exit as we googled the address for Michael Jackson's boyhood house. 2300 Jackson St. 3am. We were alone in the dead of night with the tiny building that housed the Jackson 5. Hallowed ground. Amazing way to end the tour, a quiet goodbye to one of my heroes.

-Karl