kansas city 6.27.07

Today was about the craziest day i've ever had in my life. We had a day off in kansas city, and stayed at the house of our new friend seth. The neighborhood was a little questionable(read: ghetto). He was a friend of The Record Machine(local indie label)and graciously opened up his home. Me and Ryan(state bird) were sitting on the porch around 5:30pm checking our email when 2 young men who looked about 17 approached the house. They were acting very suspiciously, and asking us if the house was for sale. I was feeling a little uneasy, and was delighted to see nathan and ryan(winston jazz) pull up to the house. Just when nathan and ryan were coming up the steps, one of young men pulls and gun out of his pants and tells us all to get on the ground. Then he instructs us to give him our cash, credit cards, keys to our cars, and our I.D.'s. I whipped out my wallet and threw all the cash on the ground and slipped my wallet back in my pocket, thinking this might appease them. Which really sucked because i had close to $300 in my wallet. I had been keeping my merch money in my wallet for some stupid reason. They did'nt insist on the credit cards and debits cards (thank god) but got all of our driver's liscences for some unknown reason, and all our cash. They got the keys to nathan's moms car which was a brand new Saturn. They asked me to pass over my laptop, i looked the gunman right in the face and said, "it's got all my music on it" in a pleading sort of voice. I guess they were not completely soul-less because they relented and did'nt take the laptop. They got a little spooked and ran away. I thought they were going to steal the car but for some reason they did'nt.

We called the cops and filed a report with them but i don't really expect anything. They said most of the city detectives were busy with a shooting that happened a few hours earlier.

I've had so many random thoughts floating around in my head about what happened today. It's opened a whole world of conjecture about power, violence, my attatchment to material things, law enforcement and social problems. I've got plenty to think about. I suppose the common sentiment among everyone is we're glad we did'nt get shot today.

kansas city 6.26.07

Tonight we played in kansas city at a wonderful country music venue called The Record Bar. I felt out of place there because it's a country bar, and as you might have guessed, people go to a country bar to hear country music. On the bright side: i recieved some complimentary drink tickets and got sufficiently liquored before cramming the entire discover america band into a photo booth for a low-budget photo shoot. Thanks to papa nartan from the record machine for hooking this show up.