The Seattle Adventure, pt. 2
(continued from previous story, so unless you want to be confused, go read Part 1 first.)
That first night, Shaun and I had a hard time sleeping on the shitty couches in the "studio." Sleep deprivation will be a recurring theme in this story, as you'll notice. I woke up first, and wandered outside to scout the nearby area and see if there was anything useful that I could report back. I rubbed my eyes, which didn't make the bloodshot/jet-lag go away. When I focused, I was greeted by a nice little surprise. Just across the side-street from our studio was a broken-down gas station. And in the parking lot, where the gas pumps used to be...was a tiny li'l coffee kiosk!
I skipped up to the window and ordered a large "whatever the fuck." For those who don't know, I drink at least a pot a day, so this was the best possible scenario for me. I must have been their greatest customer for the handful of days that we actually stayed at the studio. It definitely got to a point where I didn't have to say anything when I walked up to the window.
Anyways, I went back and aroused Shaun. heh, funny how that word can be used in different ways. He got up and gathered himself, and we decided to just start walking down 6th Ave, which was the street our studio was located on. Ryan, our host, was on-duty at the army base, so...we needed to find food and/or candy. We walked about one block, and were greeted by the 2nd good omen of the day-
Southern?! butbut...that's where
we're from!! And there's a Southern "Kitchen" in Tacoma, WA?! HELL YEAH, time for lunch.
I loved it. I got something fried and covered in gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans...it felt like home. Shaun thought that the food was awful, but Shaun is obviously a
tard. Anything covered in gravy, sold by a place with "southern" in its name, is generally amazing.
From there, we began our long trek down 6th Ave, which as it turns out, is a
very long road, full of shops of every sort imaginable.
I believe we first stopped at a CVS, to buy postcards that our families had demanded we send to them. We continued another block or so, and Shaun saw a cute girl putting items out for display in front of a clothing shop. We decided to follow her inside, and Shaun chatted her up for a few minutes (as he does), and we headed on.
We found an interesting novelty shop that sold Nitrous tanks. Those are highly illegal here in Louisville, so we kind of wanted to buy a couple, but due to funds, I left with only a pair of cheap fuzzy handcuffs.
We had no plans and no idea when we'd see Ryan, so we decided to just keep on walking. Sort of like in that Gump movie, where he just starts running aimlessly. After an hour or two, we were exhausted. We didn't know if we should continue, or turn back. We sat on a bench in front of a doctor's office near a nice little record shop called Rocket Records to discuss our future.
We eventually decided to turn back, and walked who-knows-how-many miles back to the studio. We made it back, took whore baths in the sink (which became a ritual), and basically just sat around watching movies on my laptop. In the studio, we'd found a copy of "School of Rock," (which we both agreed sucked, apologies), and "Neo Genesis: Evangelion." I don't remember much about that one, aside from lots of action and gigantic anime boobs.
Ryan finally called us later in the day and came to pick us up. To avoid making this part of the story a thousand words longer, I'll just try to sum the things we did with Ryan up in a quickly manner-
- We went to a movie theater that sold beer, and saw "Garden State" for the 3rd or 4th time. Sidenote- I do not drink beer.
- We went to Pugit Sound and uh...looked at it. Very nice, lots of water.
- We were reassured by Ryan that "it would be fine" to record our music in his studio. Still not sure how that was s'posed to work.
- Ryan (literally) snuck us into his army base, and borrowed my laptop overnight to install some recording software. I did not want this to happen. I debated and gave in. Turns out that he mostly just looked at some NSFW photos of my then-girlfriend.
- And finally, Ryan took us to a party being held by a bunch of his army friends.
The party was pretty ridiculous. There was plenty of great food and snacks, and I distinctly remember someone watching PRIDE Fighting on a tv. But the army friends were a mixture of hipsters and rednecks. Basically, they would corner us and do the whole routine of... "have you ever heard (insert band)? oh? How about ___?
Really?! Well uh...how about ____?
No?? Ah-HA! I win, I win! Indie
cred!!"
The other thing I remember about this party is that at some point, a purple Grand-Am pulled up full of beer-wielding hicks, and Shaun and I felt a little closer to home. Then, once everyone had a nice buzz going...the trampoline wrestling began.
And this wasn't just for fun. This was MMA style wrestling, with real winners and losers, decided by tap-outs. A very interesting thing to watch, especially when you're in a strange place, far from home, with a fried chicken leg in your hand.
Skipping ahead. After a few days of trying to sleep in Ryan's studio and doing no musical work whatsoever, I decided I just couldn't take it anymore. I was about to snap. I said "fuck this," and the next time Ryan was able to come pick us up for a ride, we went hotel shopping.
Our funds were already pretty limited by this point, so we picked the crappiest motel we could find that had cable tv.
We were just happy to finally have real beds. We put our things in a corner and kicked back in our very uncomfortable, yet better than the studio, beds. We flipped the tv on, but...nothing was happening. We tried all of the common tricks, but we weren't getting any picture. So we decided to go to the front desk for help.
(like this, only not nearly as nice)
We were greeted by a very small, older Asian lady, who spoke broken English, and she walked us back to our room.
She turned on the tv and reached behind it. She flipped a switch and the picture started working. She said, "you see? this give you cable!" She then flipped the switch the other way. Suddenly, a woman is blowing a guy on the tv screen. She exclaimed, "and this is for the porno!"
She stood there for a few seconds too long, while we all awkwardly watched a blowjob together. We thanked her and shooed her out of the room, and laughed uncontrollably about how fucking insane the previous 2 minutes had been.
Of course, literally moments into our stay, we started finding cockroaches. Lots of them. Under the mattresses, in the bathroom, etc. We barely got any sleep that night, and once again realized that this situation was not going to work. If we were going to stay in Seattle/Tacoma any longer, we needed a real fucking hotel, with real fucking beds. And we were nearly broke. So, it was inevitable...
Time to call Mom.
So, there's the end of part 2! The real excitement starts when we move to our next location. Things to come- prostitute confrontations, casino breakfasts, syringes in parking lots, pawn shop bartering, a trip to Pike's Place/Fish Market, and much more!
Stay tuned! I'll be writing some other things in the meantime, but hopefully I can have pt. 3 up before too long.
Bye for now!
