Bloomington, IN tomorrow at Boxcar Books!

If you were wondering what it's like to ride in the backseat of the Grimace, this is exactly what it's like:



Tomorrow (Saturday) we will be reading at Boxcar Books in Bloomington, IN at 7pm! Be there!

So I haven't updated in a few days but a lot has happened so I should write about that.

Asheville, NC

As you may have seen in the post that MK put up, we did a reading in Asheville, NC and read from each other's comics to spice things up a bit. Since each of our readings has two parts, each of us read a part. It was really fun. Only about 4 or 5 people showed up but we had some beers and it was actually an incredibly fun time. Thanks to Downtown Books & News in Asheville, NC for hooking us up!

This is what their bathroom looks like (with excellent Punchbuggy Tour flier placement):



One of the few audience members actually worked at a local anarchist bookstore/coffeehouse called Firestorm Books and he invited us to stop by there later on to sell them some of our stuff, which we did. We also hit up a great record store called Static Age which I promptly dropped almost $40 in on a few sweet records (which will probably get broken in the back of the van) and we ate at a great restaurant called Rosetta's, which had an amazing $5 menu from which I got my dinner of vegan chorizo tacos with salsa.

That night we stayed with Hope Larson and Bryan Lee O'Malley and their AWESOME DOG Midge, who is the cutest puppy you will ever meet. Seriously.


Midge, sleeping on my feet in the car. So cute.

On the way to their house I spotted a Krispy Kreme with a "HOT NOW" sign on so we had to go pick up some donuts. Gabby ordered, and when the lady didn't understand him he decided to talk in a fake Southern accent so she'd understand. When she countered his order for a measly two donuts with a terse "IS THAT ALL?" he freaked out and ordered a half dozen! And then I had to pay for it! It was okay though because I'm always willing to do what it takes for donuts.

Right as we were pulling out, a cop pulled us over (it was only a matter of time till we got pulled over in this death trap that is the Grimace) but she let us off with a warning when she found out we were "just passing through."

Here is some audio from right after Gabby ordered the donuts right up until the cop pulled us over.





The next day Hope took us hiking in the Blue Ridge Mountains (with Midge of course) and after getting some sandwiches we headed off to Pigeon Forge, TN.



Pigeon Forge, TN

Our original plan was to hit up Dollywood when we passed through Pigeon Forge, but apparently it's closed on Thursdays, which was our one day off to go. We had to leave early the next day so we knew it just wouldn't be possible. Luckily, MK had a $100 credit on Orbitz because she talked shit about them on the internet one time and they wanted to give her some hush money. So she used the credit to get us a SWEET ASS hotel room in Pigeon Forge at a hotel with an INDOOR WATER PARK.


Laundry in the hotel room??? YES!!!


A full kitchen in the hotel room??? YES!!!


An awesome personal balcony with a beautiful view??? YES!!! PIGEON FORGE!!!

Here's a view from the parking lot of the fancy hotel and surrounding mountains (and our crappy van):



We got crazy lost in the Appalachian mountains trying to find Pigeon Forge and passed through some crazy country territory, complete with small children staring mouth agape at the sun and men standing in the middle of a river for no reason. Broken down shacks and front yard sermons aplenty! The one bright spot was watching the pink sunset over the mountains as the sun went down, it was pretty beautiful.

Eventually we found the hotel and still had an hour before the water park closed, so we basically dropped our shit off and ran right over. We were like a bunch of little kids, there were two waterslides, a 20 person hot tub, a sauna, and all that junk. It was amazing!

Afterward we walked over to a pub in a strip mall called the Roaming Gnome and got super drunk on Yuenglings and whiskey shots. Then MK and I peed in between two buses in a parking lot and convinced Gabby to roll down a wet hill. Then we did drunken laundry in our hotel room because did I mention the hotel room had a washer and dryer in it? Yeah. Pigeon Forge rules.

The next day we all stumbled out of bed just in time to make the 11am checkout and roll on out to Louisville.

Louisville, KY



Despite my friend Jason Saint's best efforts, the reading at Ray's Monkey House in Louisville was still pretty sparsely attended, and mostly by Gabby's friends who live here in Louisville. When we got there, we found out the projector they had was completely the wrong kind of projector and wouldn't work with our laptops, so we decided to just have everyone pull up their chairs to a table and put the laptop on the table and read from it that way. Somehow we also decided it might make up for the lack of projector if Gabby and I accompanied MK's reading with a soundtrack of live banjo and ukulele.

Surprisingly, even though Gabby and I have never played music together, it went incredibly smoothly and dare I say... really well! I'm hoping we can do the live musical soundtrack accompaniment thing for the rest of the tour because it was really fun.

Here is audio of the entire reading with musical accompaniment.

After the reading, we sold a few books to the people who showed up and I chatted with Jason a bit until he had to go back to work. All in all, I think it went really really well considering all the things that could have killed it. We went out to dinner and walked around Louisville for a while and got some tea before making our way back to Gabby's friend's house, where we are staying tonight.


A comic book store in Louisville, KY.

Tomorrow - Boxcar Books in Bloomington, IN!