gorblivians reunion weekend in memphis and the road trip there and back

so as you may or may not know, i went to memphis last weekend. it was for the oblivians and gories reunion show at the hi-tone. i really dig both bands. both bands for me are good reference points as to where someone would look as a way to get into the garage rock revival of the late 80's-90's. not to mention they're both good resources for finding out about great garage punk from the '60's. since this was a trip to memphis it was also a trip to eat. sorry, but the two (rocknroll & food) are intrinsically intertwined. dunno why, just are. so, on this trip my good buddymarni went with. she's gonna sing for me, jesse and charleys new project : neighborhood zero. we set out kinda late on june 18th because i had some setbacks with cashflow. i decided since i was going to be bombarding my body with crap for 3 days i needed to eat kinda health on the way there. so at gas stations i only ate like bananas and granola bars etc. road food and truck stop food is a killer, and it makes eating good food a little less pleasureable. i think we hit a dairy queen or two (inbetween memphis and provo there are about 45 million dairy queens.) and some other unmemorable places. it took us about 26 hours of driving to get there. i love doing this trip. any way, we got in to memphis at about 8:30 pm on the 19th, shot the bull with my greandmother for a bit, rested up for a bit, then headed out. we were half trying to get in the show for friday night (we only had tix for sat) and kinda got tired of waiting around in the heat. oh, yeah,last weekend in memphis sucked. i don't remember ever being hotter in my life. and i heard a few folks say that exact phrase. sucked. so we decided to grab some food. we hit up the lamplighter. if you've been to memphis and haven't gotten a cheeseburger there, you're probably an idiot. or an asshole. i defy anyone to find a better burger made in a bar in the mid-south. alex's tavern on may be close. they're always perfect., i've never had a bad experience eating one of miss shirleys burgers. oh, and when you go, don't swear or she'll kick you out. for drinkers, they have pabst in a can, bottle, or pitcher. your pick. oh, and don't forget fries. her fries kick ass too. while we were there we ran into a few friends form the goner-board, dutch hercules, and useless eater. we chatted them up for a while and then we all went over to murphys to see some crappy hardcore bands play. i mentioned them in my previous post (you know, the inspiration for the logo). it was only fun because the bands blew so hard and there was a bunch of idiot skinhead/ sXe wannabe shovematching going on. after that we went on home and crashed. got some good sleep and decided to get out kinda early (read: noon thirty) and we headed over to bryants breakfast. i have to admit., i was kinda let down. everyone talks up bryants. it was good, don't get me wrong. very tasty food, but you know, i have a tough time finding breakfast thats better than pete's. this is saying alot for me. i will more often than not privelege a southern resturant over most of what i find in provo. pete's is the exception. so after we were done at petes we headed over to the goner record store to see what was doing there. i only spent about $100. i'm patting myself on the back for having more restraint than normal. got some good stuff, passed on some good stuff. marni grabbed a few records too. i dunno why it is lately (the past year), but i've mostly been buying 45s. i like them. while we were at goner, i ran into joe dixon, another goner board amigo and he was saying he and his friend elspeth were thinking about going to gus's or payne's. can't remember, but the mention of food didn't sit well after just having a bunch of greasy breakfast food, so we passed, but we did head over to murphys to check out the day show that was going on. get this: $10 to see twinkle van winkle, magic kids, lover, perfect fits, and the mighty cococoma. all the bands killed it. one of the more fun shows i've been to in a while. got to see a bunch of memphis folk and out of towners as well. and once again, it was hotter than hell. we found a coupla cool spots in the bar to hang out so it wasnt too bad. we hung out a little more with joe and elspeth, billisa, scott and gina, joe and heathurr, and more folks i cant remember now. afterwards marni and i made the trek out to my dad's BBQ resturant and picked up my mom along the way. it was good, marni got the brisket and i got some ribs. i can always count on a good meal there. the ribs were way good, fell right off the bone. and as usual, the brisket was perfect. oh,. i also had a salad. i figured i needed some vegetation in my body. afterwards we headed bck to my gradnams for a bit to "unload" and grab cameras and stuff for the big event. we showed up about 10 minutes before the gories went on. so cool to see them play. i'm with a lot of folks, reunion shows are kinda dumb, but theres always exceptions. they were pretty faithful to what i've heard were gories shows. and then the oblivians, of course, brought the house down. one of the most fun bands i've ever seen play. its all about fun for those guys and everyone should take note. its my main goal anytime i play a show. make it a party for everyone. if people are bored, we quit. if they're into it, we keep playing. after the show, we were allfeeling good and danced to the dj's and got all sweaty all over again. we met back up with joe and elspeth and decided to hit up the pancake shop for a late "snack". it usually the place i like to go after a show. me and joe got bacon chip pancakes and marni and elspeth watched us. none of us were tired so we decided to find somewhere else to go hangout. so we got jack stands to take us over to alex's tavern and we ended up staying there the rest of the night. haha, when we walked out the sun was up. such a good time. we said our goodbyes because joe and elspeth were headed back to chicago and me and marni went home and crashed. this was the 20th. fathers day. so somehow we ended up hanging out at my momshouse laterin the day waiting around for a few hours for my dad to get ready to eat. we went to this crazy buffet called grand pacific. i'm pretty sure its based on the same model as the "i"buffet in provo. (coconut shrimp). i ended up eating mostly sushi. nothing else really looked that good. we then went back to the folks place and hung out with the folks, my sis her husband and her kids. we decided to get in kinda early so we could get a good start on the trip back. after a pretty good night's sleep we got up around 6:30 and were out by 7:30. not too much to talk about except we stopped at the cadillac ranch in amarillo. we ate at this one dairy queen in texas. i promise this was th wierdest dairy queen on earth. the kid running the register was half crazy and talked to himself while he took the orders. he also probably hadn't washed his hair in a good week. kinda killed my appetite. and i found a good little diner in new mexico called the kiva cafe. really good breakfast food there. it in a little town called grants. theres clouds painted on the ceiling with wolves and owls and horses and snakes painted into the clouds. pretty hilarious. there wasn't anything really notable until we went to rays tavern in green river. they got pretty good cheeseburgers there. after that we were basically home. can't wait to go back to memphis in sept for goner-fest and have more time to eat a bunch more delicious food.

a logo?

so on the drive back from memphis (i promise i'll post something soon) i kinda thought up a little logo. its kinda like the old straight-edge thing, the big x with the first letter of the scene name inside the x. i got the idea after seeing this really bad band in memphis and one of the kids at the show was wearing some crappy straight-edge band shirt and on the back was a crossed monkey wrench and like a hammer or something. when i saw it, i thought to myself, woah, straight edgers are really starting to fix things. that absurd image (really, how many straight-edgers are really workers? like, worker workers? unionized pipefitters or framers or carpenters or plumbers or electricians or machinists or any other real unionized labor force. record store employees don't count) got stuck in my head and i was like, there is nothing more absurd than my blog. so i decided to exploit that old tried and true scene identifier. i feel honest about this because i work in the foodservice industry and i write a blog about eating. and just like any straight edge scene (or even productive hardcore scene) theres only about 15-20 people who are part of the h-is-for-hungry crew. in due time i'm going tmake some shirts. i'll probably make a stencil and spray paint them on white shirts, because lets be honest, they're cheap and you can see your food battle stains better. i may make some stickers to put up at the places i eat and talk about. the first one is definitely going up at pete's. the 2nd one is going up at nicolitalia. hope you like it.

a dude who can eat more and write better than any of you

the inhuman eating machine

pizza overload?

it didn't seem possible, but i think i overdid it yesterday. for lunch i made myself a pizza with alfredo, chicken, ham and broccoli, then later last night me and marni, jesse, charley jared, and marnis crazy ass friend went back up to nicolitalia and i got the same thing again. i also helped marni eat her cannoli. nick was experimenting with a new pizza, like a mandarin orange chicken sesame sauce pizza. he of course didn't listen to our protests that we were all pretty full so we got a free pizza that way, it was pretty tasty, but i wish i hadn't been so full. it probably would have tasted waay better. any way, i'm feeling 50 pounds heavier as a result of last night. i dunno if i want pizza again for a day or two.

i drink my smokes

i've posted this everywhere else, so i may as well post it here too. so last night after a full day of watching season two of lost i decided to go grab some food, i was hoping BK was still open so i could get a whopper but they weren't so i went through wendys drive through, after the manager was kinda short with me (i realize his job blows, but who's doesn't) taking the order i got my food, held my tongue and drove home. i ate my crispy chicken sandwich and my double stack and my baked potato no problem but my drink kinda tasted funny. i chalked it up to a bad mix, it happens, but it wasn't like there was too much syrup in the coke or not enough, just a strange flavor i couldn't put my tongue on. almost minty, yet bitter. so after a bit i decided to take the lid off and i see all kinds of little black bits on the ice and on the straw and was like wtf are these coffee grounds? nooly juliette and dave moore were standing around while i did this and they all looked in too and were just as skeezed out as i was. so i shook the cup around a little to get a better view of the bottom and to my genuine surprise (shock, disbelief etc) THERE WAS A FRIGGIN CIGARETTE BUTT IN THE BOTTOM OF MY CUP. sick sick sick. i don't smoke, never have, so i feel it was a natural response to feel sick. how does this slip by? i mean he manager took my order? aren't they the folks who get hired to check over shit like that? so i called the wendys and the mangaer answered and i told him what happened, and yelled a little. he said none of his workers smoke, and they may not, but whatever, what i want to know is how someone missed an entire butt?he said he was going to buy me lunch today. i don't really know if i want to go back. i wonder if i can get him to buy me lunch somewhere else.

wondering why its been so dead at nicolitalia

i don't get it. every one i talk to or run into has really good things to say about the pizza there. we just one an award for best in state. so i'm pretty sure it isn't the pizza. i wouldn't work there if it wasn't amazing pizza. so what is it? i know we aren't the best at advertising and promotion, but usually a place with food this good (elsewhere) can get by on reputation alone. i don't get it. it really bums me out to see this happen. nick is saying he may close down before the summer is out. i hope this doesn't happen, A) because i'll be out of a job, B) because utah valley will lose one of the best pizza joints around. with the exception of a place like pizzeria 712, all the other pizza joints are trash (IMO). go ahead and shout conflict of interest. doesn't bother me. i applied to get a job here because i love nick and i love his pizza. so, if anyone has any suggestions (we're pretty serious, no joking aorund) we'd love to know. nick doesn't want to go out of business. please read and repost wherever you can. one of the better businesses in utah valley could use the help.