On Sunday, October 31, 2004
he stood on a balconey in New Orleans, looking down on a crowd of Halloween revelers. He witnessed an open drug transaction. He watched a cute girl in a skintight pink costume knock on car windows and make out with the driver. He looked at cleavage. He felt miserable with an existential sense of squandered potential, watching the drunk, soon to be having sex crowd, pissing and puking on the narrow streets of an ancient city.

On Saturday, October 30, 2004
the Kissers entered Lousianna. People down here actually say "ya'll". With southern accents and everything. No joke. Do they know how non-northern they sound? This isn't just some charade affected for the northern tourists, is it? Can they be serious?

On Friday, October 29, 2004
in Austin, he became a cartoon, limbs and hair shimmering in paint, drifting through an endless dream of diverse, sometimes contradictory monolouges, ranging on everything from molecular physics, free will, to violence and film.

On Thursday, October 28, 2004
the Kissers drove through east Texas. This is not fiction. They came up behind a red pick-up truck with a bumper sticker that lauded the virtues of being from Texas. A dog sat in the bed, its ears flapping in the slip stream. The dog had three legs. The dog actually had three legs! In a pickup truck with a Texas bumper sticker. And the driver isn't wearing a shirt. The driver is barechested, with a three legged dog and Texas bumper sticker pick-up truck. Joe slowed down so Pete could take a picture.

On Monday, October 25, 2004
he walked down Santa Monica Boulevard on a cool night, excluded from the act of shopping. Things that no one needs and most can't afford stared at him through storefront windows.

On Sunday, October 24, 2004
he sat in the cluttered workshop of an accordion repair show, watching Kimric apply a new layer of top wax to a bank of reeds. Automatic for the People played in the background as Kimric talked about the fireworks he designs for the Burning Man festival every year, his team that builds and competes killer robots, and the pyrotechnics he designed for a music video where ninjas on skateboards attack a van with explosives.

On Friday, October 22, 2004
he woke up with "love" scrawled in black ink across his right arm several dozen times. It took two days to wash off.

On Wednesday, October 20, 2004
a strange show in Spokaine. One audience member is a red tank top, shiny red pleather pants, day-glo orange loafers, a big blonde wig. Another audience member carrying a snow board. Another audience member contending that the poorest citizen of Kuwait could buy Bill Gates ten times over.

On Tuesday, October 19, 2004
the Kissers stopped at the "Montana Grizzly Encounter" just outside of Missoula. A small zoo, several acres, with three very content, captive raised grizzly bears. At this altitude, snow already dusted the ground. The bears came and played in the icy pond, wrestled. No pacing or visible signs of depression. A train rolled by in the hills above. The sun filled the thin air.

On Sunday, October 17, 2004
he passed on an invitation to play 90s Trivia Pursuit from several nice fans.

On Friday, October 15, 2004
he read the following passage in a book by Meridel Le Sueur, about the settlement of Wisconsin and Minnesota.

"The heritage they give us is the belief we have in them. It is the story of their survival, the sum of adjustments, the struggle, the folk accumulation called sense and the faith we have in that collective experience. It was real and fast, and we enclose it. Many unknown people lived and were destroyed by it. What looks to us grotesque or sentimental is the humor of the embryo, the bizarreness of the unformed, and the understanding of it is a prerequisite to our survival. It was real, and created our day. Perhaps it encloses us.
It is the deep from which we emerge."

On Thursday, October 14, 2004
a young boy of six or seven years stood alone, directly in front of the stage, tugging at his crotch in time to the music. The Kissers exchanged meaningful glances, barely surpressed laughter.

On Tuesday, October 12, 2004
the lead singer of Barnstorm approached Nate and Kari and told them he loved the Kissers, but thought they'd have an easier time getting on MTV if they ditched their lead singer. "Seriously, why are you guys messing around with him anyway?"

On Monday, October 11, 2004
in Boulder, he walked up Pearl Street to a pedestrian mall. Where he came upon a mysteriously familiar statue of a girl on a swing. "Hearts on a Swing." What the? Then he remembered.

On Sunday, October 10, 2004
he and his companions were destroyed by the army of Duke William of Normandy, bearing its papal banner aloft, on a hill outside Hastings, on a dreary autumn day in 1066.

On Saturday, October 09, 2004
a bartender approached him after a show in a dungeon-like Irish Pub just outside of Kansas City. The bartender had noticed several cute girls eyeing Pete on stage and decided to offer advice. "Yeah, I noticed you weren't too into them, and that's cool, but here's the attitude you need to have. Like, 'I'll take you home and fuck your brains out, but I'm committed.' You don't have to say what you're committed to, just project that attitude, the I'll take you home and fuck your brains out attitude."

On Friday, October 08, 2004
a drunk girl started climbing up beside the monitor and he shoved her, somewhat curtly, off the stage. He immediately regretted it and sought her out during the break to apologize, but she was too drunk to understand. Then the Iowa University marching band paraded into the bar and lined the perimeter. The drum major climbed on stage and waved his arms, while dozens of brass instruments blared the Hey Song. At one point, during a Green Day number, a drummer allowed some busty blonde to play his snare. Results were unfavorable.

On Wednesday, October 06, 2004
he finished reading "The Metamorphosis" by Kafka. He was relieved, upon waking the following morning, to discover that he had been transformed into a hideous vermin.

On Tuesday, October 05, 2004
as the Kissers departed for a six week tour, his cell phone rang. It was the city of Madison.

"Where are you going?"

"I have nothing left. Five years. Everything that has happened I have given you. And the more difficult, painful memories of everything that did not happened. These are yours too. Take it."


On Sunday, October 03, 2004
Adam woke him at nine so they could go back to Andy's and play Nintendo. The three of them got coffee and then took turns battling through Castlevania. The Sunday morning light poured in through the window, soothing his hangover, and he felt good.

On Saturday, October 02, 2004
he didn't know what to expect, but the instant Junior Brown started playing he knew he'd be getting drunk. Beer. Slide guitar. And two good friends. By the end of the night he was on top of an apartment building in Milwaukee, discouraging himself from an attempt to leap from roof to roof. I mean, considering he could barely stand, it was clearly a bad idea.