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(San Francisco, CA, Wednesday, September 15)

Heading Home Again...

It wouldn't be a real Aphrodesia tour if we didn't break down on the way back, so after a night of celebrating the end of the Just Vote Tour in Salt Lake City, we make it partway across the Salt Flats or whatever you want to call miles of nothing as far as you can see, to lovely Elko, Nevada, where an attempt to strengthen the breaks for the trip over the Sierras cuts the electrical system in the parking lot of a credit union and deposits us room 227 at the Oak Tree Inn (no oaks, no trees, just an inn...), where we bemoan the fact that we're one exit past the bowling alley further up route 80 while cooking spaghetti on a camp stove (illegal? must be) and watching Comedy Central. We're getting good, or maybe just used to, breaking down, because no one is particularly freaked out to be spending what was supposed to be our first night back in SF packed into motel room beds for only the second night of the entire Just Vote Tour (amazing but true). Likewise, no one seems surprised the next day when the local mechanic informs us we put the break fluid in the wrong compartment and it would've been a pretty simple fix. Or maybe we're just too tired to care anymore.

I Can't Wait to be Heading Home Again...

In any case, we're on the road by noon, across yet another empty stretch of America where there's no one to register to vote, no one to care that we're not powered by fossil fuel conglomerates and no one to care about the politics of being a white afrobeat band. Except us, the seven of us who haven't flown home from Salt Lake or stayed in Boulder or New York, who listen to Ween and Public Enemy and Blue Oyster Cult yet again and wonder whether any of this month actually happened or was this just the answer to someone's drunken cocktail napkin sketch supposing what would happen if a band set off across country trying to make a difference in places it had never been before?

Mmmmm...hmmmm....Mmmm....hmmm...

(Somewhere in Wyoming, heading to Salt Lake City, Saturday, September 11)

Blowing Off Steam, Day 29-Style

After the show in Iowa we stand on the street by an alleyway where we suck up veggie oil from a big tub in back of a Chinese restaurant and play the part of vegetable oil evangelists for the frat boys and sorority girls who stream out of the bars near campus after last call. Nicole stands on the street in full Marilyn blonde wig extravaganza berating a car full of bling-bling wearing college kids for being slaves to big oil, then convinces a pair of wasted co-eds that yes, that's totally her real hair. We wish our camera wasn't out of batteries. Yet another all-night drive gets us to the Boulder Theater, where the String Cheese Incident and Motet guys who make up the Meeting of the Minds band are not only fantastic but have also learned Fela's "Zombie" so that we can sit in with them- when we do someone counts 22 of us on stage at once.

The Minds meet the Loins

After the show we have our strangest experience yet of the entire tour- we find a tub of veggie in a nearby alleyway and halfway through filling up are bizarrely assaulted by a wasted black guy who swings punches while screaming at everthing white people have stolen from him, including his Gulf War Veterans benefits and his two daughters. We try and reason that he's got a point but it's being made to the wrong people; we try and drive away but he hangs on the front of the bus, daring us to run him over. By the time the cops arrive a half an hour or so later Paul and David have been banged up trying to wrestle him to the ground and a confused crowd of onlookers shout uselessly at him to calm down. While 3 or 4 cops take 10 minutes to wrestle him into cuffs and the back of a squad car, the irony isn't lost on us that we've made it all the way to NY and back only to have something like this happen in Boulder, Colorado. He's wasted and psychotic, yes, but it's still unsettling to be caught in the middle, and we're only partly succesful trying to forget it at our friend's house over sips of wine and some bleary-eyed talk of how long a drive it is to Salt Lake.

(I-74 West- Yes, West!!- Somewhere in Indiana, heading to Iowa City, Thursday, September 9)

After the chaos that was New York, we hit the family vacation part of the Just Vote Tour. We hit Ezra's dad's in upstate NY, sleep on the porch, play whiffleball and hike through the ice caves. Sanjay's mom makes us the most delicious home-cooked Indian meal you've ever had, and then after a great night in Sugarbush, Vermont at the Eclipse Theater, we drive to David's mom and dad's on Lake Champlaign, where we lounge around, swim, waterski, and are stuffed silly by the ridiculously good cooking of David's mom Sally. We remember meals of sardines and Nutter Butters at truckstops where corn dogs are delicacies and decide we deserve it.

Burlington is a highlight, a few white-hot sets to a large and enthusaistic crowd that includes our friends Jonathan and Emily from SF, who have driven out here in another vegetable oil-powered bus, performing their Big To-Do Puppet Show across country and who give the Vermont crowd a taste of their politically-tinged hand puppet show in the set break. It's our last for a while with Maya and Sanjay, who fly out the next morning (boo-hoo), but we've picked up Paul and Nicole, both of whom flew in to NY, so as we pile into the bus after another day of lounging by the lake, we're as cramped and as cozy as ever. An all-day drive to Ithaca gets us a full tank of donated veggie oil after the show, and an all-night an all-day drive to Bloomington gets us to another show at Second Story and reminds us what piling into the bus and hauling ass feels like. We wonder if this is day 27 or 28, and what it will feel like to be back home again in San Francisco in a few short days. Strange, but not as strange as this tour has been so far.

The score so far-

3000 or so miles travelled (at least)

200 bucks or so spent on gas

13 states visited

19 shows played

1 arrested band member

900 bucks raised for protesters' bail money

200 (or so...) voters registered

19,439 times we've said "yes, it really runs on vegetable oil"

(New York, NY, Sunday, August 29- Thursday, September 2)

New York City during the Republican National Convention is a bristling police state with helmeted riot police everywhere you turn, a city emptied by the locals taking to the hills ahead of the coming hordes of unwelcome Republicans, a city oblivious because it can be to the mayhem taking place on some of its streets and the deep, angry divisions exposed on national TV. In other words, New York is strange right now. We wander around Union Square, which seems to be a gathering point for crowds of protesters who don’t know where else to go, and watch lines of riot cops moving in formation surrounding anyone who looks to be planning anything suspicious or just hanging around too long. We watch a handful of religious right Republican supporters (can we still call them Jesus Freaks?) being shouted at and shoved by crowds of angry Democrats, we tell the guy selling the Socialist newspaper who tells us Kerry is the same as Bush to fuck off. We meet protesters in Lower East Side bars who tell us they were arrested for marching in groups, one says orange mesh was thrown over him and two other people and they had to sleep on the dirty floor of a bus depot-turned holding pen. We wander around midtown looking like a very young Sonoma County horn section locked in a bus for three weeks and freak out crowds of police and hotel doormen. We play our benefit at Piano’s for people getting arrested and Mully gets arrested 45 minutes before showtime- when he miraculously makes it back half an hour later we’re so wound up we blow the doors off with a set that feeds on all the energy in the room and on the whole concrete island, handing almost a thousand bucks to Direct Action for bail money at the end of the night. We blow off steam by getting thrown out of an East Village disco for dancing too crazy and pass the not-so-wee hours of the morning out in Brooklyn drinking cheap beer out of buckets until even they tell us it’s time to go home. In other words, there’s no way to get it all in, but here are a couple postcards from what have been some strange days on the front lines.

(Mully) The RNC has certainly left a heavy bootprint on the energetic face of NYC, so much so that nearly every person you meet has something to say about it, even if only to complain about the crowds, the commute, or the fact that they feel mis-represented by how the city is being symbolized. I’m sure there are plenty of natives who feel grateful for the triumphant, well-groomed, smug, patrician atmosphere you can practically smell and taste around us, but I don’t meet any of them. Rather, the artists, the punks, the activists and the drunks are marching all day in the hot sun and getting shit-faced afterwards in protest, carving their initials in the faded, stained mahogany of the Mars Bar, trying to make sense of the machinations around them, and hoping to leave an imprint, some sign for the next thirsty soul that Kilroy was Here, another sweaty asshole on the same stool, someone who maybe felt like you do, maybe thinking the same thing you are, that something is terribly wrong here.

But it turns out, you aren’t even supposed to do that. To carve your name, you need a knife, which I keep handy on my belt at all times. After all, tour is a lot like camping, and you always need to slice a tomato, cut string, open a box, or perform minor surgery at a moment’s notice, so I try to come prepared. I’m standing on the sidewalk in front of Piano’s about an hour before we’re set to go on - - bar logistics being what they are, we’re running a few behind schedule. The night is cool, and the Utilikilt feels good in the summer mugginess. However, its fashionable cut and usefulness as a preparedness garment seem to attract exactly the WRONG sort of attention. A blue-and-white NYPD cruiser slows to a halt, the officers inside clocking me hardcore for about 3 minutes, which I notice, but ignore, choosing instead to go on discussing politricks and the rising tide of arrests and First Amendment violations in our midst. The pig riding shotgun gets out, and confers with the dreadlock brother working the door, who sheepishly requests that I surrender my knife to the officer, who also demands my ID.

Now, I can’t say enough good things about the Buck Alpha folding liner-lock. It’s sharp, well-weighted, has real rosewood scales, opens easily with a positive lock, and is Made in America from ATS-32 stainless steel. But apparently this is all beside the point to the keepers of the peace in NYC; or rather, something about the way it opens and locks makes it illegal to carry in public, because the next thing I know I’m under arrest for criminal possession of a deadly weapon, and being cuffed and stuffed behind the grill in the backseat, with a free one-way ticket to the precinct.

The officer who does most of the talking is a pudgy, red-haired guy, struggling with a generous dose of acne. He’s probably younger than me, and trying hard to act tough. He advises me not to resist and does that thing where they put their hand on your head when they stuff you in the car (fucker). I repeatedly insist that there was no unrest or disturbance, and no probable cause, and reiterate that I need to be on stage in an hour. I pry for more details about my crime, and he finally admits that in fact it would be OK to carry a 9-inch fixed-blade knife, as long as it was concealed. Apparently, it is legal to walk down the streets of New York with a samurai sword under my coat and malice in the blackest corners of my heart, but I cannot conveniently store a pocket knife on my belt without going to jail. 10 minutes later I am having my pockets emptied, my belt and shoes taken, and getting booked into a cell with 2 other enemies of the state. It turns out that one of them made the mistake of rolling through a stop sign with a bag of weed in his pocket, while the other one was stopped while driving on a suspended license. Both of them are certain they are headed for Central Booking in Brooklyn, and will be lucky to only spend one night and day locked up. Their wives are already arranging to bring them food, and the precinct guards advise them more than once that they may as well get comfortable. Both are in their early 20s, reasonably well-dressed, employed, and black. One tells me his wife just gave birth to triplets, and advises me that every time a police officer arrests someone, he receives a commission, like a salesman. Eerily, he also immediately says “You play the guitar.”

“How can you tell?” I ask.

“I just know. My friend plays guitar, and he wears the same outfit,” he says, pointing to the kilt.

The kilt draws many comments from the folks around the precinct. The other cops smoking on the steps outside give the arresting officers a hard time when they bring me in, saying “Hey Joe, why you arrest a guy in a dress?” I said that I thought he liked my legs, and they all laugh, clowning his ass all the way through the door. It’s easy to forget, living in San Francisco, how uptight, square and 100% asinine people can be.

In the end, it turns out that looking different will both get you arrested in the first place, and get you out quicker. After about 45 minutes in the cell, I am informed it is my lucky day, and that rather than spending the night in jail and most likely having to fight some asshole for the right to exist, according to my cellmates, I am instead being “summonsed and released,” due to the extreme backlog of cases the NYPD has lined up, what with all those jerks trying to exercise their First Amendment rights. The watch sargent gives me a hard time, and makes sure I know what a great deal I am getting and what a huge favor they are doing me. I thank him, but point out that spending time in jail for no reason is not a good deal under any circumstances, and that I am sure the NYPD has more important things to do than process me through its system for carrying a pocketknife. Incredulous at this unexpected rejoinder, the busy cop hands me my summons and tells me to appear in court on October 29th, or a warrant will be issued for my arrest.

Alex and Jen Castle (big up to Funkcamp for having my back) are in the waiting room, along with my folks who came up from DC for the show. Apparently, a good size posse showed up from Piano’s immediately behind the cruiser, and stormed the desk, mob deep, protesting my innocence. I wonder if my dad, a civil liberties lawyer for the ACLU, has had anything to do with my speedy release, or if being white is still your best Get Out of Jail Free card.

In 15 minutes, I am back at Piano’s, ready to help raise funds for people who are doubtless not as lucky as me when it comes to tangling with the NYPD. Unsure whether to feel grateful, pissed off, both, or neither, the irony is nevertheless not wasted on me as I unpack my gear and tune up.

Let my carelessness be a lesson to you: the police are not necessarily here to protect you from harm, but to protect the social and economic infrastructure and the day-to-day processes of the status quo from YOU: from any attempts to invoke your rights to free speech, freedom of assembly, freedom from illegal search and seizure, and above all from any ruckus you might make, regardless of your innocence or even of your Constitutional right to do so.

Fight the Powers That Be

- - Chuck D.

Fuck Tha Police

- - N.W.A.

There’s A Riot Goin On

- - Sly Stone

You’re Under Arrest

- - Miles Davis

(Maya) Bite the Big Apple! Don’t mind the maggots… Helicopters skyline sirens singing sidewalks jammed with every variety of human and loads of NY’s finest scouring the joint for terrorists/protesters/unattended bags/suspicious strangers acting strangely. Everyone loves afro beat, we rocked this city built on rock and roll.

(Pat) Zoom.

(Abe) New York City, just like I pictured it….skyscrapers and everything. Here’s the thing about New York City. I am so grateful to be out of that Hell hole, I want the west coast, this east coast shit is lame. Vermont is nice though. Shout outs to the Napa crew, I miss you all, see you soon. Katherine, I love you more than I can express, I’ll see you as soon as possible. I think I left my sanity on the F train. If anyone finds it, please send it.

(New York, NY, Tuesday, August 31, 4:47 AM)

Brotherly Love, anyone?

Philly was amazing, the best show of the tour. Maybe it was the cheese steaks before the show, maybe the set from Jojolo, the local Afrobeat band who set up the show and are absurdly welcoming to us who heat up the room with a trance-inducing set, maybe it's the mixed crowd (I hate you, San Francisco!) of Africans, European-Americans, and African-Americans who are boogieing their asses off and yelling and pleading for us to keep playing long past last call. Whatever. Philly, we'll see you soon. We high tail it back to Brooklyn after the gig (what the hell is wrong with us? This seems normal now), and make it back in time for sunrise.

Sunday is a blur, with most of us marching in the rally that winds around Manhattan and ends up in Union Square, a peaceful-feeling show of force that disperses since a permit for an actual rally was denied by the city. The MC at Union Square hints at heading up to Central Park, and some of us do, but it's mostly stranded protesters waiting for something to happen. We ferry to the Five Spot out in Clinton Hill in Brooklyn where Alex from Music For America tells us that 200 people were arrested during the march for setting a paper dragon on fire and there was quite a scene with police wrestling anarchists to the ground (the papers later say a paper dragon caught on fire and police put it out and made some arrests...we get the feeling that it's going to be increasingly hard to figure out what exactly is going on around here) and after many delays play to a crowd that includes Stephen from Son of Votemobile, who has flown out here from Seattle to reconnect, and with Nicole, our new new backup singer who has flown out here from Boulder to travel all the way back with us.

Monday passes with halfrodesia heading to Jones Beach and Coney Island and halfrodesia hanging with friends in Brooklyn. It's the Convention, yes, but even bus-weary Afrobeat warriors need their downtime....we rendevous at the Zinc Bar late night for the otherwordly music of the Ron Affif Trio, then stagger home, or to what passes for it now.

Saturday, August 28, (Philadelphia, PA)

New York, New York. Last night, we actually made it. California? Arizona? Boulder? As we roll across the Verrazano Narrows Bridge with Lady Liberty in the distance, that all seems like a lifetime ago. And yet it's the same tour, only a few days later. We pull into Brooklyn, parking in Red Hook near AJ's house, with amazment at the fact that we're finally here and we made it this far on vegetable oil and we first said we were going to New York for the Republican National Convention so long ago and we were going to register voters in swing states playing shows along the way mixing with the thousand degree humidity that makes our already dirty shirts stick to our skin like pancakes on a fryer. There not much time to think about it though, so we load our gear into Pepe's pickup, point everyone toward the subway, and end up in midtown Manhattan, at Satalla's, where we make our NY debut to a decently packed house. Our friend Toli from the Femm Nameless who encouraged us to come to NY sits in on trombone and kicks ASS... we play all right but maybe it's the nerves and the exhilharation of New york City that keeps us from calling it one of our best. Before the show we wander out for pizza and bump into the Critical Mass ride, a bicylcle show of force that started in San Francisco and now rolls past us a few hundred strong while frustrated SUV moterists honk their horns. Later we hear that around 200 bicyclists were arrested...we're in the Convention zone here in the garment district, a scant few blocks from Madison Square Garden, and the police aren't taking any chances. The vibe on the streets is a little foreboding....like the calm before the storm, or at least the deserted feel of a place that's been vacated because everyone thinks something is going to happen.

Toli from the Femm Nameless throws down at Satalla's

In any case New York is New York, and after the show and after several rendevous with old friends most of us end up in Brooklyn, drinking buckets full of Tecates until 6 am or so at the local watering hole and passing out on a strange floor yet again.

Now we're headed south to Philly with the humidity meter reading three trillion degrees, typing is sweating, breathing is sweating, getting up to fill up the spray bottle with ice water is unbearable.We find 30 gallons or so of clean veggie oil (300 miles or so, if you're still counting) at a Korean BBQ in a mall off the Jersey turnpike, and push on.

Fueling up, Votemobile style

Thursday, August 26, (I-278, New Jersey)

Rolling again. Finally, we're mobile. Long story short- with the help of the Rock Me Pony mobile and Jason's Mom's minivan, we ferried everyone but David over to Bloomington, Indiana, where we play a one-guitar-short set at Second Story solid enough for them to invite us back on our way back to SF (Wednesday, September 8, yay!).Unfortunately, the wonderful mechanics in El Paso, Illinois turned out not to have checked the fan belt pulley size before ordering it, meaning the wrong part showed up the next day, and we spent an extra day bumming around Bloomington, eating Jason's mom's amazing zuchinni bread, swimming in quarries and checking out the local color. Everyone except David, that is, who spent 2 days in the Days Inn in El Paso, watching Elimidate and sampling the entire local Subway menu. Which could be worse, except that it causes us to miss our gig in Ithaca (rescheduled for Tues. September 7, double yay!), and leaves us with no choice but an all-nighter through Ohio (after filling the tank with veggie at the Manderin Buffet off of Indiana Rt. 37: over 3000 miles, $100 on diesel...) to Lara's parents place in Harrisburg, PA, where we shower, load up on pirogis and sausage, and the hit the road yet again. Yesterday was Abe's birthday, and at a rest stop Lara and Maya give him a present of Ho-ho's with a lighted stick of incense while we all sing Happy Birthday underneath a glowing Shell logo.

The happy birthday boy

 New York, two days before the Republican National Convention, with midtown in lockdown and protesters denied assembly rights, awaits. Pepe is driving like a maniac in front of us with his camera slung out the window, trying to get a shot of the bus entering New York and barely escaping death by 18-wheeler every other second. James Brown is grunting on the bus stereo, Jason has decided his cold isn't going to go away until he starts drinking again, Malita rides in front trying to get an interesting camera shot from a bunch of mostly passed out natty-looking musicians trying to escape the humidity by shedding whatever layers they can, and I sit here trying to make sense of it all before I forget it all improvising around the next crisis.

Monday, August 23, (Room 204, The Days Inn, El Paso, Illinois)

The backstory: After 10 gigs in 10 nights, from Long Beach, California to Madison, Wisconsin, our heroes find themselves on the side of I-39 heading south towards Bloomington, Illinois, and then towards Bloomington, Indiana (got that?) with a busted fan belt portending something fishy in the engine. Not to worry- Rock Me Pony ponies to the rescue, and with the help of an extremely patient El Paso, Illinoian mobile mechanic, our fearless warriors only take an hour to travel two miles to the next exit, where they park the bus and find their way to the local Days Inn, watching Adult Swim, gobbling bus-made pasta and (gasp!) doing laundry. Intrepid, cosmic fortitude for the bus to break down on an off night near a mechanic, or a sign of things to come? You decide, loyal reader:

(***Editors note- the following words are solely the opinions and thoughts of several people who have been trapped in a bus travelling cross country for ten days, playing shows, registering voters and wearing smelly socks, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or views of Aphrodesia, Inc., the Just Vote Tour, the Votemobile or the California Republican Party)

We might not be home for dinner...

(Abe) First of all, was anyone aware that an El Paso, Illinois existed? Well, it does, and let me tell you, drop everything and get here. Go find a crippled old man in a wheelchair, punch him a few times, steal his wheelchair, pawn it, and get a ticket to Illinois and come to the Days Inn and go to room 204, and maybe there will be some Jagermeister left…..or not! Bwah Hah ha ha ha ha ha! Foolish mortals! All will bow before the almighty power that is my left nostril! I swear the road hasn’t made me crazy...me...no...I’m not crazy…. I miss my girlfriend..i want my mommy...hold me, it’s getting so cold in here...so terribly cold. Vaya con Dios!

(Pat) So this nice woman with a Wisconsin twang is trying to lure the kitten out of the hole with a Mcdonald’s cheese burger. (once more for dramatic effect). SO THIS NICE WOMAN IS TRYING TO LURE A KITTEN OUT OF A BLOODY STORM DRAIN WITH THIS GENETICALLY MODIFIED PIECE OF PIG FEED HOPING THAT THE RAIN DOES NOT COME AND THE KITTEN DOES NOT DROWN LIKE A BLOODY RAT IN A BLOODY SEWER. Why would anyone trying to save an animal buy a McDonalds burger and then sit around worrying about rain? I stand there with my kitten t-shirt and soy milk and a bag full of Budweiser (yup; we are definitely broken down) and make a quip about Darwin and she looks so sad and I try not to laugh as kids are punched on the television and I eat beans straight out of the can and type on some sort of future device that allows my unsaid thought to be transmitted to bored people all over the world. Did y’all know that Brittany Spears is still alive?

(Ezra) It’s good to shave your head somewhere where someone else has to clean up.

(David) el paso illness… the fan busted... they said they fixed it...they said it was goin to be alright...why did this happen I ask you? hotel room el paso, it's pasta and chef competition TV 3 queen beds not sure what to do with this. a couple of people in a bus suckin grease... living on the fringe... lets go to the center of madness and find some meaning for our life...the TV told us too much tonight...welcome to the planet...at least wine exists!!!!

(Sanjay): How the fuck did we end up in El Paso, Illinois?! Oh, wait, Jora (the Votemobile's legal name) broke down. She’d been soooo good to us up to this point. 10 days and 8 states later. most of the gang is still here in this god forsaken town. Welcome to the freakin’ heartland. From all accounts from the triplets, we’re making friends here in the hotel, just as we seem to do everywhere we go. Don’t forget to press ‘start’ on the dryer, once you’ve paid your $1 and are waiting for your laundry to finish, and then you can put this day behind you. Oh – more horn section wrestling. How bruised can you get? These people are pushing the question, I tell ya. Gotta check on that laundry...

(maya) Wisconsin was pretty hip. A nice old lady in a big flowery house dress knitted stocking caps (for children in hospitals) while she swayed back and forth the entire night on the dance floor. Smiling, tranced out on the deep pulse of afro beat and the act of good will. Kweku Ananse, the local high life band we split the bill with, comprised mostly of Africans, was hot. And when we hit the stage they rocked the dance floor with their killer moves and got the knitting lady to forget about all those poor kids in the hospital.

Sunday, August 22, (I-39 from Columbia to Madison, Wisconsin)

All right, Ezra is now officially tired of being the only one updating the world on the increasingly surreal goings-on on the Just Vote Tour. This is the part of the show where we open the floor for random postcards from the rest of Aphrodesia:

(Maya) We made quite an impression on the college co-eds in Columbia in our patriotic underoos who came in and took our pictures, stared with blank expressions and left quickly, probably to go post them on the internet.

(Ezra) The young Republicans were really impressed that we had George W. Bush sit in on drums on one tune. Actually I think they were sort of confused when he told them to vote for John Kerry, but maybe they figured out that it was Jason wearing a big plastic mask and talking brilliant gunslinging oil producing electric chair switch throwing congressional redistricting pickup truck cruising Texas slang.Maybe.

(Pat) Kansas was a blast. We ate a gourmet meal consisting of Hardee’s, Taco Bueno, and dollar bananas which tasted like porcupine needles. The local soldiers were overwhelmingly friendly to those of us sporting camo and started praying when they spotted our commander in chief filling the bus with veggie oil. Then we made a quick stop at a local vortex to pay our respects for the meal we ate, pulled up in Columbia, brushed teeth, and watched frat boys on the prowl. There were hundreds of them in their uniforms of gap polo shirts and hair gel. They roamed the streets like rats in a sewer, overwhelming and consuming all in their path. Then we brushed their teeth.

(Lara) I met a special forces sniper at a diner outside Denver who liked pretty ladies and guns. He wanted to share secrets. "Tell me something that you’ve never told anyone before.” He prodded. I felt an urgency to puke on him and his war. He looked me in the eyes and promised he’d never killed an innocent person, and asked if he could reveal his secret passion, streaking. Then with a sparkle in his eye, the black Rambo proceeded to strip in the parking lot of the Biscuit Café and saunter into his jeep while I ran to the bus for cover.

Yes, it really runs on vegetable oil...

Saturday, August 21, (The Drive From Hell- I-70 from Denver to Columbia, Missouri.

Actually this wasn't so bad. Could it be we're getting the hang of this? We clean the bus after the set in Denver (15 registered voters by the New Voters Project), assign sleeping spots (four across the big bed, two in the bunks, there's room across the floor for a couple.....somehow.) We leave Denver around 3 am, David drives till sunrise, Ezra takes over till 10 am or so, then Jason for a few hours and now Mully is steering us across Missouri. The Votemobile is cruising like the Queen Mary- we keep knocking wood every time we mention it. Unfortunately, the first bit of bad news on the tour is that we left Son of Votemobile behind in Denver. Converting a new bus to run on vegetable oil, it turns out, isn't always so easy. Ryan and the floor-length dreadlocked guy who showed up in Long Beach and stayed with us known as Little Raindrop did a masterful job of keeping it running, but in the end it wasn't meant to be and they're heading back to the West Coast. As we left they were debating whether to try following us or turn around, but the distances are too great for a bus that's not quite working right and we don't expect to see them. Which means as we glide across the prarie on Saturday morning we are very much alone and on our own- the way we planned this originally, to be sure, but we had gotten used to the idea of a support vehicle with Ryan the bad-ass mechanic and 300 gallons of filtered veggie oil. Hopefully Pepe and Malita will meet up with us soon to continue their documentary- things are getting interesting- but we can't worry about that now. We press on, filling up on stored veggie oil at a truckstop in Kansas (Is that thing really running on vegetable oil? Uh-huh.) and head to Columbia.

Veggie-based initiatives

Friday, August 20, Boulder, CO-

Wednesday Albequerque, Peace and Justice, Low-key meeting hall set, half the crowd registers to vote (don't get excited, there were only 20 people).

All night drive to Boulder, rain, fog and mountains slow down Mully. Arrive in Denver, Maya's mom makes us coffee, we try to keep sleeping on the bus.

Day 7 begins, we wander around the Boulder Mall while normal people shop and drink coffee, wondering what time zone we're in.

Boulder reporter calls, she saw the bus on the street, why are we in Boulder? Because San Francisco is a bubble and doesn't matter, so here we are. Does that thing really run on vegetable oil? Yes (No, we just write that on the side to make you nervous).

Someone on the street pops their head in, wait, there's ten of you in here? Holy shit, there are.

Rock Me Pony is here, but Son of Votemobile is stuck in Albequerque, getting fixed again.

Show at Trilogy is amazing, we wear American flag underwear and capes to a packed house, Lenny the poet from Denver spins a hard core political improv from the stage before we start.

Now it's the next day and we hang around, mostly sleeping and walking around before we get back on the bus to head to Denver, and then the Drive From Hell afterwards- 750 miles to Columbia, Missouri.

Things are getting more and more surreal, the bus now seems normal and the world outside is bizarre. Someone buys a newspapaper, the first we've seen in days.

Marines dead in Najaf.

John McCain says John Kerry did too save someone in Vietnam.

NBC mad at the Greeks for all those empty seats.

Wednesday, August 18, (Aboard the Votemobile on I-40, Flagstaff to Albequerque)-

Last night in Flagstaff was the unofficial official start of the Just Vote Tour. After the tranquility and beauty of Arcosanti and Sedona the Votemobile rolled into Flagstaff and set up shop at heritage Square, where we pumped vegetable oil donated from the Mogollon Brewery while members of the Flagstaff Democracy Network registered voters on the sidewalk. After a drop-in at the local Republican headquarters we headed to the Brewery and set up shop, where we learned that Paul Babbitt, democratic candidate for congress from Arizona's second district, would be stopping by the show to address the crowd. Babbitt cancelled at the last minute because he had to go open another sporting goods store. Or something. Still, we had Chris Bower, the 21-year old field director of the Babbitt campaign, address the crowd, as did Gretchen Adelson, the local director of the John Kerry campaign, and John Echols, the Flagstaff field director for the Arizona Republican Party, who earned huge points for taking us up on our invitiation to speak even though for a Republican the heavily Democratic crowd at the Mogollon probably made a hornets nest seem tame by comparison (not to mention endearing himself to Aphrodesia by showing up with a gallon of veggie oil!). After that, it was Aphro Beat blastoff time, with a surprisingly big crowd that danced their ass off until the club called last call. Now we're cruising east in the Votemobile, which has been running on straight vegetable oil (we filled up at a Flagstaff Thai restaurant before leaving town) since getting on I-40. Which means about 1300 miles travelled on vegetable oil so far, or San Francisco to Albequerque on 40 bucks of diesel, if you're keeping score. Which we are.

Morning rehearsal at Arcosanti

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Sunday, August 15, (Aboard the Votemobile on the furnace known as Interstate 8, southern Arizona)-

With the tour prologue safely behind us, we've headed east into Arizona. Add rule #4 to the list of things not to do on your tour- 'Never drive through Arizona in August.' Unless, of course, you like sweat pooling off your chin as you squat and change a vegetable oil filter on your bus in air that would make your health club turn the thermostat down in the sauna. We never said we were exactly 'smart' about this whole adventure.

Friday night in Long Beach was fantastic, except for Son of Votemobile overheating climbing the Grapevine north of L.A. meant the Aphrodesia guitar section of David and Mully had to catch a ride from David's old bass player's dad (got all that?) to get to Long Beach just in time for our set. Which was fine, except that the box with voter registration forms and leaflets was on Son of Votemobile, so the two volunteers who showed up from Music For America had nothing to do except hang out and watch us play a good set opening for the incredible Delta Nove, who invited the Aphro horn section up for a New Orleans-style second line number.

The Aphro Nove Horns

Political rabble-rousing was limited to some choice comments from the stage and and an irate Republican who crumpled one of our MoveOn stickers and threw it at my cousin Carlos at the merch table while yelling he was a Bush supporter. Ah, the thrill of political discourse.

The next day, with Son of Votemobile expertly fixed by Ryan, we refueled with veggie, played a wonderful wedding at the Hilton, took a last dip in the Pacific Ocean, and headed into the desert for a couple hours before sleeping for a few hours by the side of the road. Since the Votemobile's top speed is around 65 and Son of Votemobile tops out at around 60, Aphrodesia is now packed aboard the big green machine heading to Arcosanti, where the caravan will reconvene at the show.

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Friday, August 13, (80 miles north of Los Angeles on Interstate 5)-

Somewhere in the vast literature of band advice are doubtless the following tried and true admonitions- Never take too many people with you. Don't do anything tha will alienate part of your audience. Don't venture too far into places you've never played before.

So we're o-for-3 (0-for-4 if you count not starting your tour on Friday the 13th). Incredibly, The Just Vote Tour has grown into not one but two vegetable oil-powered buses after the last minute addition of a converted city transit bus from Santa Clara, outiftted with couches, mattresses, 300 gallons of vegetable oil tanks, three documentary filmmakers (Pepe Ozan and his wife and daughter), and two mechanic/veggie oil whizzes who welded, pounded and pleaded nonstop for the last week to get the thing into shape.

Son Of Votemobile

Spray-painted by a local graffitti artist last night with the requisite 'Runs on vegetable oil', 'Just Vote Tour', 'Aphrodesia' and 'Rock Me Pony' in bright bubble letters more common to the late 80's NYC subway than a big white bus motoring across the California Central Valley, it makes quite a pair with our bright green converted airport shuttle bus, carrying all ten of us, with big white and orange lettering plastered all over that still gets us honks of approval from people who saw us in USA Today last week or just think it's plain cool.

Add to that the fact that we're striking out across the entire country for the first time, leaving the comfortable liberal bubble of San Francisco behind to take our poorly-disguised message of regime change out to the states that aren't always drenched in blue on NBC's election night special, and it's pretty clear this is either the dumbest or most inspired undertaking we've ever done, or both.

Either way, we won't really find out until we cross over into Arizona on Sunday and leave California behind. For now, this is a tour like the others Aphrodesia has done to Southern California- we spray ourselves with water to try and cool down, fret about the bus overheating, and wonder when to call the club in Long Beach to tell them we'll be late for soundcheck.

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