nebraska.

WHEN WE ARE ONE HAS REACHED NO. 40 on the pop charts at the IDOL UNDERGROUND website - go listen, and rate it high so it goes up on the charts and i win a few bucks! let's hear it for love songs...


guess what? today we drove. a lot.
last night was a classic college bar, but with a little nebraska personality for something special. great local band, the darts, closed the night. cunninghams journal (name of the bar) has massive $2 beers on tuesdays. it wasnt tuesday, but owner mike hooked us up with drinks all night, so we were all good. zack sat in and played sax on over the world, which was a party, and at the end of his set i contributed some wurly over a long sax solo. nice...
then we slept. a nice, real sleep, at a genuine hotel. so sweet.
oh, and the spurs closed out the kings, which was nice, though i didnt get to see it.
got on the road around 1130a this morning, headed to omaha, dropped off zack/brians suv, picked up sandwiches, celery, & fruit from mr. & mrs. hexum, and now were on the road to cedar falls, iowa, another college town. lakers are about to start playing the suns for their last game of the first round of the playoffs. zacks very excited. he loves them lakers.
these drives are just endless, really. flat. corn. empty fields. dirt. mechanized watering machines. cows. silos, barns, warehouses, horses, tractors, manmade lakes, blue gas/food/lodging signs every few miles. its an incredible thing, really, this country is so vast, so plentiful. you can drive and drive and drive and theres just miles and miles of plenty.
the reverb in cedar falls, iowa, is a classic old school rock club, lots of wood, some pool tables, and a full on stage with big sound. pomeroy is a big band around here, kinda reminds me of 311, but a little more jammy. great guys, got to hang with them for a little bit, and well see them again for a couple more shows on the tour.

its now may 9, were on the other side of a day off in omaha, so ive got a little catching up to do on the blog tip. we spent the night in cedar falls at brians cousins house hes a great visual artist, im gonna try to figure out a way to get something of his sent out to l.a.... anyway, he and his wife have a great place in cedar falls that cost just about nothing as far as housing goes, and theyve filled it with tons of really cool shit. and its got a nice little dungeon adjacent to the basement.
made our way over to omaha, just a 4 hour drive or so, dropped off zack & brian and took the van a few miles over to curtis grubbs house, singer/guitar player from omahas grasshopper takeover (gto). they lived in l.a. for a stint about 6 years ago, and i wound up producing their international dance marathon record, which is one of only a handful of production projects that i remain totally proud of. we became good friends during the course of our working together, and when we realized wed be in omaha, got back in touch. curtis lives with marcie in a great place off a golf course in omaha. basically everybody out here lives in houses (which is a veritable impossibility for lots of los angelenos, like me); they dont know how good theyve got it.
grubb treated us to dinner at a great tapas place right down the street from micks, and we headed there after filling up on way too much good stuff. micks is kinda like a hotel cafe type vibe, low key, singer/songwriter place, which was a nice change from the cedar falls rock club thing, enables a few more intimate tunes and chill moments in the set. the room was pretty well filled up, had a great show there and met some great people. wound up heading back to grubbs with a decent sized group, including bob from gto and a buncha others. began writing a new tune with grubb at his downstairs studio from about 1a 3a, with the party raging around us.

slept in til 1p. what a pleasure. no driving today. rolled outta bed and headed to ms restaurant in the old market of omaha with marcie/adam/grubb, had some really interesting duck salad and water, sweet water, after a night of too much other stuff. then...
golf. grubb and bob are golfers, both living so close to a nice course, so we spent the afternoon on 9 holes. id never been golfing before, and had a great time, began connecting the ball with the driver off the tee and felt that feeling that so many others have felt before me, that pull of man to golf course that you basically cant understand til youve been there. grubb/bob are good, nailing that ball right down the fairway, know what clubs to use for everything, and how to use em. i did ok, bob claims im the best first time golfer hes ever seen, which is probably just enough to get me to come back for more. what a great way to spend a day, out in the brisk nebraska weather, hitting balls up in the air... adam went running in the area and caught up with us on the last couple holes after running through some peoples games.
picked up some very large omaha t-bone steaks and veggies for a barbecue later on, dropped em off at bob/carmens place, and headed to mi3, which was a great way to relax our brains and bodies for a couple hours. then back to bobs where a great night of wine & food began.
let me tell you something you havent eaten steak until youve eaten steak raised in nebraska. it doesnt taste anything like any meat ive ever eaten. its perfectly tender and rich and just perfect, pretty much impossible to describe, but amazing. so yeah. go get yourself some steaks shipped in from wolmans in omaha for your birthday or something, you wont regret it.
all in all, a fantastic day off, much love to grubb/marcie/bob/carmen for showing us a great time. apparently the state motto in nebraska is the good life. totally.

up early today after getting a good nights normal sleep, time to blog and email before we get back on the road this afternoon. i think were even gonna get some bball in with brian and zack before we take off to kansas city.