Take It Or Leave It

God dammit. This thing is still here? People aren't checking to see if there is an update, are they? Well, this is the last place I want to be. No, I'm not talking about work, I'm talking about blogger.com That reminds me though, god, fuck work. Only about an hour or so until I'm free of the soul crushing. Of course, around these parts hours last longer than seasons. From here on out I'll be referring to my job or work in general as "Dream Ender", cool? Ah, I've already started to drone on. As I was trying to say, I don't want to write anymore. Yes, it's mostly due to laziness but there's another factor hindering my ability to hunker down in front of my computer. If I were an actual writer I'd probably call it writer's block but since I'm a bull shit hack and grammar con artist I'll just call it - "I'd rather play video games".

Of course there's a flipside to all of this - the fact that I crave attention. Positive, negative, unhealthy, healthy. Any and all of it - give it to me. So if I'm going to get anyone to stop by this here http://www.polarblogclub.com/, I guess I'm going to have to scribble out a couple more stories/lies. Please understand that the timing of this entry has everything to do with PBC's recent seven inch and Strike Anywhere tour announcement. But I'm pretty sure you knew that already, I'm a part of you. Think of me as that piece of food in the back of your throat that you just can't swallow or hack up, only balder. Actually, I'm sort of still working on an entry that vaguely summarizes and wraps up out last l tour of the UK with Ruiner and Defeater. Well, that piece is currently located in the back of my car trunk (next to the chopped up hooker) and I’ll be damned if I go outside for you people. So instead of finishing what I started, per usual, I'll just start a new couple paragraphs about our recent "adventure" in Erie, Pennsylvania and Canada. Take it or leave it, that's my new motto!

Little weekend "tours" do as much for me as non anal porn - nothing. Of course, it's great to get out of town for a couple days. You know, get away from the wife, the kids, the corporate office. Wait, I actually mean the parents and the sexless boss. Seriously though, I've been to Switzerland. You really want me to get off the futon and head to Erie, Pennsylvania? Whoa, whoa, whoa. Free beer? Ok, I'm in! Actually, even leaving my town for a couple hours is completely worth it. It's just tours are more fun when you're gone for an extended amount of time with other bands you know you need to watch every night. This time around, PBC was doing a date with Everytime I Die, playing a Canadian Fest and then finishing the weekend in Toronto with a bunch of bands I'd never heard of. However, as often is the case with me, after having a negative outlook in the beginning, I ended up having the greatest weekend of my life. (That's a complete lie, the best weekend I ever had consisted of watching every Star Wars movie back to back, LSD and a complimentary hand job. More on that....never)

Our little adventure begins in a little city called Erie in the state of Pennsylvania a.k.a. the state that never seems to end while you're driving through it. Either way, Erie is a city best described as "filmy". No, not because Erie would be a great place to shoot a film but rather due to the layer of filth or film you're encased in as soon as you enter the premises. That's an extreme exaggeration and I'm not sure why I wrote that. I guess I'm just feeling mean. Headlining the show was Everytime I Die a band I have no interest in and a band that didn't seem to have an interest in meeting any of us. Ah, no worries, I'll just drink in the van instead. Luckily for us (me) there was a bar right across the street from the show. Pennsylvania is a strange place that sends mixed messages. It's like that girl who lets you slap her boobs around for awhile but refuses to kiss you. In the Keystone State you can go into a bar and smoke yourself silly but don't you dare try to buy beer from a gas station. Instead one must either go to a beer store or purchase take out beers directly from previously mentioned smoky bar and that can be pretty pricey. While I am the smartest man of all time, I am not the richest. However, I'll always sacrifice money for my disease so the remainder of my evening involved drinking van beers and not watching one single band. Of course this meant that I skirted one of my many, many responsibilities - the selling of the merch. Well, it was way too fucking hot in the venue anyway and a girl my size shouldn't be subjected to such bands with such big X's around their names so Goose was kind enough to pull double duty as bassist and merch gal. As far as PBC, well, technical issues combined with a lot of time off equaled a pretty shaky set - good but could have been better. This is coming from a guy who doesn't even play an instrument so you know my opinion matters.

After our brief visit in lovely Erie, PBC was scheduled to perform at an all day fest called S.C.E.N.E in St. Catharine’s Canada. Because you never know what the border police are going to throw at you we all got up bright and early just in case Chris Browne decided to lie to an officer again. As it turns out getting into Canada took little effort and now the only anxiety I was to face was at the actual venue. You see, I fucking hate all day music events. Everytime PBC plays one I'm constantly on the verge of a panic attack. Most times these events are poorly organized and I spend my time running around, sweating, sober and actually working. Well, working for a good 15-20 minutes and then getting drunk but believe me, I sweat! And how! I'm told there were over 150 bands playing all on the same day in all sorts of venues in and around the stage PBC played at. Of course, there were only a couple bands I had any intention of catching, those being Cancer Bats, The Artist Life, The Flatliners, and....well, that's about it. Thanks to my new best friend Goose "merch mogul" Henning, I was able to actually catch one of those bands! Clearly, I watched Polar Bear Club; they were on the main stage which was both exciting and awkward. PBC played earlier in the fest and being on the main stage meant that a lot of people who had never seen them before were able to watch, like it or not. But along with this came a large stage, larger barrier, and general ho-hum response from the crowd other than the diehard mainstays. In a smaller venue with no distance between band and crowd, sweaty dudes piling on top of each other, and Jimmy shirtless, I think PBC would have gone over well. So well in fact that the last sentence I just typed wouldn't have sounded homosexual at all. Other than the mild disappointment of not running into a cast member of Degrassi: The Next Generation and piling up a bar tab close to 100 Canadian dollars (daddy gets generous, as well as touchy, when sauced up), everyone had a lot of fun and ran into a lot of good friends. Overall consensus? Success!

The next morning I woke up on a couch hung over and swearing to myself that I was not going to drink that day. PBC had a photo shoot to pose all pretty for but other than that we just needed to get to nearby Toronto for the show with Carpenter, Sights And Sounds and a couple of other bands I cannot remember due to my pickled brain. Our friend Travis was putting on the show at the Kathedral, the same venue PBC played at on the Have Heart/Trapped Under Ice tour this past March. Considering the close proximity of Toronto to the previous nights SCENE fest in St. Catharine’s, no one was really sure how the show’s turnout was going to be. To be honest though, I didn’t care whether five or five hundred kids were going to show up because Travis provided us with a Mexican dinner and I made a death pact with myself to overdose on guacamole. The show did start slowly with only a handful of kids watching the opening band. The drunker I became, the more the venue began to fill up. At the end of the show there were at least 120 kids all psyched to see PBC, Carpenter and Sights And Sounds. Briefly, I considered stage diving for Polar Bear Club due their great performance and fantastic crowd response but then I remembered I prefer to sit on my ass instead of moving, so sit I did! Earlier in the evening, however, I did waddle up towards the front of the stage to watch Carpenter a band I’d never heard of until that night. Mix vocals that sound like non shitty River Bed era Small Brown Bike, a love for John Mellencamp, and straight up indie rock and you’ll get Carpenter. I often talk about how if I ever owned an Ipod again I would only fill it up with Johnny Cougar so you know I loved this band. Check them out if you can.

The ride home from Toronto back into the United States proved uneventful and I drunkenly slept away yet another van ride. Proving yet again that I’m only lying and hurting myself when I promise to not drink that day, your friend Tracker eventually ended up at my parent’s house and back into the loving folds of my girlfriend – the futon. And now here we are at home, bumming around until tour with Set Your Goals, Four Year Strong and a bunch of other bands I’ll not watch while drinking beer in the van begins. No offense to either of those bands, I'm sure they're great but I only care about Avail and booze. I’ve been working at Dream Ender, Emmett had his wrist operated on, Goose is busy being my number one PBC’er, Jimmy is in Washington, DC and for the rest of the guys….well, I forget their names. I’m sure they’re both working hard wherever they are. Hopefully, I’ll manage to find some time before we leave again to pop out a couple more blog entries that use the same old jokes you’ve heard a hundred times before . Hell, perhaps I’ll even get around to wrapping up the UK tour. Until then, listen to Samiam.