We don't have Ed's uber phone from last year so its tougher and tougher for him to make "GPS look like shit" as he put it from time to time last year. All of our phones seems to be having one problem or another but the Tims seem to be doing pretty well so they typically plug in our destination and Ed takes it from there. Anytime Ed needs any answers (at all, for anything and at any given time) he will call back "Google me this" or as I would say in my fictitious Ed voice "googer me dish".
We are actually kind of ahead of schedule and get to the venue about 3 hours early. Were also on a tight budget this year so Mike takes to the phones to get the cheapest room we can find. Getting bored with the standard conversation, Mike on the phone has become a traveling, poor-with-money, but rich-with-spirit Christian rock band. It's awesome. It hasn't really brought a discount but it does bring for much entertainment. We get a lock on a room 8 miles away from the venue. It's a little far, but the price is right so we head for it. As we remember from last year, everything is big in Tacoma so 8 miles is like 20 regular miles. Once we get there, it's not lookin so hot. One of the wings looks to be condemned so we say fuck it, lets just wait and get one later. Now for the fun part. All we have to do is get back to the venue we were already at. The Tims pop the address in and Ed makes like a tree and gets outta there. We hit the highway but Ed doesn't like the vibe so he cuts left and calls on the GPS to reroute us through the back roads. Now, I'm not one to question the directions, but things aren't looking too familiar and even in Tacoma miles this seems like a long trek. Ed's not going down without a fight though. Not even when we turn into a neighborhood filled with cul de sac's. Not even when it says we're there and we are outside of a ranch style home. I think Ed is still considering parking and starting to load out. Meanwhile, we are now on the verge of being late back to the venue. I text Jeff who has become the Charlie to our Angels. He advises me to let Ed know to take off his google goggles and buy a fucking map! Somehow, we get back on to a highway and re-calculate where we are going. It's also rush hour traffic at this point and we miss our exit. Things are not coming up Boldtype today.
Eventually we get back (about 2 hours of extra drive time and by my giant calculations, maybe 15 Tacoma miles. Not too late, but feeling silly because we were 3 hours early at one point. Anyway, the BSBG is really nice to us. I don't know how to describe it. It's sort of like Coyote Ugly in that the waitresses dance on the bars in between bands and sort of like some of the 80's rock bars in Denver where the fog machines are aplenty, but they also put on punk rock shows. Again, i can't say enough how nice they were to us and when we played our set, the crowd was really responsive. Its also really cool to come back to towns we've been before and see some of the people remember us. Also the Tims came alive tonight. It was awesome! From the first song, things went nuts, beers got spilled speakers got jumped on and at one point Tim was riding on Mike's shoulders!
Side note, cigarette prices are sky high in Washington. I don't smoke, so I'm not totally hip to the prices but $10 a pack seems pretty high. Luckily there is a place right next to the venue that has some crazy ciggarette making machine. It's like Willy Wonka for smokers. A tim recorded the whole process, but you basically buy the tubes and the tobacco and then load it up and then like a hundred smokes pop out. It's crazy. Try it. I almost picked up the habit so I could buy some.
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