In Massachusetts. Just woke up in The Hamster Hole. That’s what I’ve named my bunk: the top one in the way back, right under the skylight, so I feel I should have a wheel and some cedarchips and everything. I’ve built a little nest of books and clothes there, too.

Ben named his “The Space Burrito” on account of he’s always rolled up like fragrant fajita-guts, and Al’s is “The Odyssey” because of his Hellenic genetics.

Feel real groaty. The greenhouse effect is a motherfucker up in The Hamster Hole. I just took a sink-shower at a truck stop, a now I’m in the fake café drinking boatloads of the shitty, overpriced coffee. I’m so used to the whole Dark Meat tour trip that I forget the perpetual sartorial and hygienic effects it has on me. Cruising around the truck-stop, I kept thinking to myself “Why are these uptight motherfuckers gawking at me?” Got to the bathroom to, uh, wash my armpits with Molly’s loufa and took a good gander: oh yeh, I’m in a sleeveless shirt with a huge purple skull on it, I’m smeared in yellow and blue facepaint, my hair is dreading (by accident), I smell like an enormous scrotum and I’ve already lost weight and gained the hard amp-humping tour-muscles. I look like a Carnie who just lammed from the fucking loonie-bin, ate a bunch of acid and skinned your Chocolate Lab. I’m sleep-deprived a bit, so I do feel nuts, but I’m stoked and ready to keep on chooglin; touring with Dark Meat in the bus compares nothing living in our old van. That made me flat-fucking-psychotic. Least now I get some me-time and some flat-on-my-back time.

Happy to say that, muscially, we are already reaching the lethal-point; our improvs are gnarly and our rhythms are straight and we are nuking people nightly. We killed it last night, even got those weird hard-on New Englanders dancing and rowled up. I was surprised; everyone was really nice. We were playing a “Punk Rock Night” at the bowling alley, so I was expecting some narrowminded pricks with sleeveless leather vests and “bad attitudes” burnished by the bad weather. That element was there, but we won them over. A great DJ spun punk records allnight, which was killer. Bad Brains and Gang Green does wonder for the pre-show bloodflow.

The Monotonix had the expected equipment probs last night – Yonatan’s amp fried. They still killed it with their energy and charisma and mania. Did great.

Today we play Bridgeport. Gonna go hang with some comrades in New Haven first, and maybe shower (!). Can’t wait to see my buds in Providence on Friday: some of my old stomping grounds, and my fave diner in the Northeast besides Odessa on the Lower East Side of NYC. Babe Ruth’s favorite hot dog stand is there, too – an allnight joint called the New York System with all-u-can-drink joe and old pinball machines. Plus we are playing with a Lightning Bolt project, Black Pus. They are gonna spray our brains across the walls, I know it. Those guys do no wrong as far as I know.

Don’t know much about Bridgeport, but I’m not a supreme Connecticut fan at all. Who knows, though? Manute Bol played college ball there for a year, so that’s something; we plan on dedicating the set to him, the night to him, our toasts to him, our oxygen intake to him, and any sexual pleasure we may create and encounter, etc…………

Jim McHugh