chinese broccoli

The nice part about having a ridiculous slash awesome lifestyle slash job is that you can follow your pals around on tour, wake up in whatever strange town, hang out with somebody’s babies and grandparents and get work done all at the same time, oh also while making the three-year-old kid grind your Colombian microlot coffee for you.

So we hung out for, like, ever at Pete’s folks’ Asheville place…so nice, so relaxing, so pleasant all around. We laughed, we wore mustaches, we passed the baby around, we hung out with Wrigley and Mr. Britches.

Really the only thing that could have made it better would have been stopping for lunch on the way out of town to get BBQ sandwiches made with smoked pork sausage, pulled pork, sugar cured bacon, and pepper jack cheese. OH WAIT WE DID THAT.

While in line for our hogzilla sandwiches, the nice man at 12 Bones smokehouse noticed that I was wearing a green T-shirt that said “coffee”. He asked about it and I mumbled something. Elisa tried to get the man to court me (she always has my back) by telling him “she’s a coffee expert!” but I quickly looked at her green T-shirt that said “love” and diverted the subject, with, “yeah and she’s a love expert.” Then I ran away and got my 32oz sweet tea.

Some more of Pete’s family straggled out to the smokeshack to say a meaty goodbye, Sada Jane put a lot of gravel on her head while she was bored waiting for us.

Here is a picture of Pete Nolan going for the trinity of happiness: pork, baby and beer.

We headed out of pretty Asheville and towards Athens. The day was looking pretty good. Pete even had some of the Best Chocolate Cake In The Entire World that his sister had been hanging on to for him for three months. Nothing beats your favorite cake eaten out of a ziploc bag on the interstate.

We got to Athens and it was muggy. It was also empty, someone having booked this tour through lots of totally booming college towns…immediately after school ended and the towns emptied out. This didn’t stop the remaining denizens from recognizing Ghost at both the bookstore and the Starbucks, however, as recounted to us before soundcheck by Giant. (I picture it going down like: “You’re Ghost!” followed by silent, awkward nods and foolish grins, then them running away to go fill up 32oz sweet teas).

My friend Danielle drove out from Atlanta and watched the show from the merch table with me. She and I were just innocently standing around watching Ghost when suddenly Pete came up to us and asked nonchalantly…”So did you guys see the dude with the armadillo?” This didn’t make any sense to me and so I kind of tried to play it off knowing the band had gone and smoked a whole bunch of pot in the graveyard just a minute ago but then I looked towards the back of the club and sure enough, there was some random wasted dude who had wandered in off the street for whatever reason with a live armadillo, cradling it like a baby.

Liz: “What’s your armadillo’s name?”
Dude: “Dinner”
Liz: “How long have you had him?”
Dude: Ten minutes”

This was my last show with the tour so let me tell you it was one hell of a way to go out. It was a little too real for Elisa to hear about, though.

Having no closer options than Danielle’s generosity, we pried our eyelids open with toothpicks and made a beeline for Atlanta…a short 70 miles away and another night getting to sleep at 4:30am. John Shaw: driver, record label mogul, silent hero. I raise an armadillo to you, sir.

Live pix from that nite here.
Final wrap-up tomorrow with some of Elisa’s video, too…