Pardon my language, but Holy excrement. What a month August was.
On Friday night Iced Ink played our farewell show at Big V’s and I can’t thank everyone enough for coming out and representin’. If you ever have to move across the country and want to play a bye-bye show with your band, be sure it’s not the night before you leave town. Bryn and I were so fried by the time we got to V’s that it's not even funny. But it was a total blast to see all of our friends and family show up and an honor to take the stage one last time with two of the most goodest and bestest musicians I’ve ever had the fortune to play with – Berkman and Barry. There is now a giant void in the cockles of my heart without you guys. When I did things like try to cram the “Sweet Child O Mine” riff over “Steve Buscemi Overture”, you guys always hung in there and kept the train rolling as I laughed at myself. No one else that reads this will get the sheer ridiculousness of that, but I don’t care. That’s just how good you guys are and it sucks that I couldn’t take you both with me. There’s some pretty big shoes to fill out here in NY in that regard.
The gig ended, we left around 2:30am and took a wee 6 hour nap at our homeboy Eric’s place. Woke up, left Minneapolis at around 10:30am on Saturday morning, and drove a nice brisk 26 hours straight through to Brooklyn with no naps whatsoever, something that I'm sure I'll one day refer to as "the dumbest fucking thing ever I did when I was younger... I coulda swerved off da road and killed us all!" The only stops made were one in Bryn’s hometown Wautoma to drop some stuff off in storage and shower at her parents, and then approx. 5 stops to fill the 16’ moving truck with gas and go potty. We were a little concerned with how the cats were going to behave in the cab of the truck for a day and some change, but it turns out that they’re natural travelers. They did the whole drive with minimal whining or fuss.
Damn!Things got rather interesting in Pennsylvania. Driving euphoria started sinking in due to the sheer exhaustion – plus there was a lot of fog in some of the lower altitude regions... at times I was wondering if we’d crashed and were driving through the pearly gates. Whenever it got to be too much I’d stop for a Red Bull. I don’t know what they put in that stuff… I know there’s an old rumor that it’s bull piss or semen something of that nature. Even if that’s the case, I tip my hat to all of you bulls out there. Next time I have to make any sort of drive like that, which hopefully won’t be for a very, very long time, I will have a stockpile of Red Bull in tow. Pennsylvania is a beautiful drive, however. Mountainous and picturesque, and quite spectacular when you’re fortunate enough to catch the sunrise on the road.
At about 11am on Sunday, along came the Garden State. The first thing I thought of when crossing that border was
Huh.. so this is where Springsteen and Bon Jovi come from? There sure are a lot of trees. Traffic got progressively more congested and the highways more littered, when finally we found ourselves at the clusterfuck that is the Holland Tunnel which shoots you straight under the Hudson River and into Manhattan. We sat in line for a good 20 minutes as I pissed my pants hoping that no one would crash into the moving truck in such close quarters. We arrived at the toll booth with cash in hand, excited to cross the border and get to our new place. And the lady in the booth kindly said this:
“You gonna have to take the Lincoln Tunnel. Commercial vehicle.” She let us through, a cop directed us to a quick left turn which routed us back towards the Lincoln Tunnel… and another 20 minute wait. At this time I was starting to notice the gas gauge needle slowly creeping towards E. How awesome would that be to run out of gas in this fine little mess? We turned around, sat in line, zipped through the incredibly narrow Lincoln Tunnel, and POOF. There we were in Manhattan. I felt like Clark Grizwald making it to Wally World. If you ever want to experience the most intense rush ever, don’t sleep for over a day and try aimlessly driving a 16’ moving truck full of your most prized belongings through Manhattan. THAT was a trip. Between the GPS, Bryn peeping a map, and my hella madd defensive driving skiznills, we somehow made it through the city in one piece and crossed the Manhattan Bridge into Brooklyn. One straight shot down Flatbush and I heard the GPS robot lady voice say the most beautiful words ever: “Take a right on 7th, and after one quarter mile you have reached your destination.” Had I not been so focused on driving and not crashing the truck I would have made out with the GPS right then and there.
The next impediment to overcome was to somehow find a parking spot for the moving truck that wasn't 3 blocks away from our front door. Let me tell you... the fun never ends when moving to a big city. Thankfully there was already a moving truck hogging up space practically right smack dab in the front of our place, so Bryn hopped out and asked the driver if we could cram our truck in behind his to unpack while I anxiously circled the block. He was cool with that, I parked the truck, and there we were in Brooklyn ready to start a new chapter in life. We walked across the street to the Realtor to get the keys to our new apartment.
Now all we had to do was unpack the moving truck... and then find a place to put it until the next morning when we could return it.
Coming soon: The exciting conclusion, tentatively titled Holy Shit, our apartment is crammed full of boxes wall-to-wall... we do have a floor, right?
