last night i saw the alphabets live.

seattle has much to offer. there is good coffee everywhere, there are branches of the public library that have bathrooms from the future, there are quirky music stores that let medicore bass players noodle around with expensive pedals that make medicore bass players sound less mediocre and more like powerhouses of virility and funkiness. there are omelettes with goat cheese and carmelized onions. there is a needle from space that bill gates uses to knit cosmic hand towels for the bathrooms from the future. seattle, to me (being from portland), is like the cool cousin that hooked you up with warm beers from your uncle’s garage when you were 14. seattle, the adopted home of the alphabets, is a fine last stand. seattle is our own hadrian’s wall. now we plunge into the abyss, like ed harris before us. this is, in fact, possibly the last time on this tour that any one of us will draw analogies to both the roman empire and pre-titanic james cameron films in the same breath. tonight we must pack the van with style and discipline, and make the first of many marathon drives eastward. bets are being made on individual freak-outs. i am seriously wondering whether or not my grand plan of cooking on the road will not result in some sort of awkward and humiliating disaster.

say what you will about the four men that make up the llc, but we are nothing if not a united front against absurd and baseless apprehensions about my abilities as highway chef, our collective inexperiance with the camping we have planned, dave’s sporadic explosions about internal politics regarding the hoodie situation, misha’s deteriorating mental health, and nitzan’s cabin fever when it comes to long stretches of driving without music or any real conversation. in spite of all this, we will continue to post rambling blogs while watching football and we will continue putting on the most potent live show we can.

the alphabets have lit a fire under our asses, and we must answer not with the water of shoe-gazing but with the gasoline of flailing-limbed rock.

and love songs.

As I sit in the beautiful home of merch-girl extrodinare Sequoia Methford, I realize that we, Speechwriters LLC, are about to step out of our comfort zone of West Coast sunshine and nice homes (Misha’s parents and Jack’s parents both have excellent abodes, a big thank you to the Chellams and Mahaffys) and into the belly of the fall tour. We really don’t know what to expect, well Dave and Misha do, but they don’t what to expect of me and Jack. They don’t know if and or when we will freak out, although Jack came pretty damm close today when he saw how much stuff he had to pack in our beautiful van. But Jack overcame that small obstacle and did a stellar job of packing. I think this is my outlook for this tour. You give me lemons, I’ll make lemonade. Give me the worst parts of a pig I’ll make pigs feet, snout, or chitlins. But thus far we havn’t had to create swine or use their parts, the west coast leg of the tour was a fine experience and I don’t plan to go downhill from here. Nope all uphill, nothing but chitlins and lemonade.

And the winners are…

Thanks to everyone who participated in making this a really successful and enjoyable contest. There was an absolute onslaught of entries all of Friday and several right up until the 11:59 deadline. Well done and to those of you who are hearing about this for the first time don’t worry, you can still send me pictures of or relating to SWLLC album art…just don’t expect to win anything, or even a human response.

Okay, enough talking, lets announce the winners:

First place and winner of an All-Weather SWLLC Survival Pack, goes to Amanda Parks & her co-hort “Chinako”. I love this picture because it not only has a certain air of optimism about it, it’s also just two covers away from a Mac 10…rock on.

Second place undoubtably goes to Paulami Naik. This was one of the first entries received and stuck in my mind as an early winner. It’s incredibly subtle, yet unabashingly obvious. The captions are endless, and like the book The Indian in the Cupboard, who knows what this conversation would end up like.

CD Art: So, come here often?
Ceramic Bear 1: *to ceramic bear 2* I get the one with the axe…
Ceramic Bear 2: *to ceramic bear 1* Okay, I’ll take the one with the rifle.
CD Art: Ummm…

Third place goes to Kathryn Elizabeth DeTore for her majestic and mystifying picture entitled “Flying Without a Care.” I just love it and even as a seasoned photographer I wonder “How did she do that!?” The answer of course is a quick shutter and possibly some broken table lamps.

EDIT: Apparently I’m wrong. On second thought, it’s probably dental floss and elbow grease…ick.

It’s also worth noting a few honorable mentions. These people didn’t win anything this time around, but their effort is definitely worth a shout out. The first goes to
Lindsey Sherman for submitting 19 photographs. Each one was different from the last, and if was certainly a lot of work. Also gaining runner up props is Lisa Streit who didn’t send in 19 pictures, but certainly sent several good ones which just narrowly avoided the top three. Here’s my favorite from that group:

Spin cycle…get it? Muh hahahah…

Thanks again for everyone who sent in pictures and pulled out the album for a listen (or in some cases, took it out of the CD player for a few precious minutes). Stay tuned to the boys’ blog in the next few weeks as they’ll be providing near-daily updates. As for me, I’ll still be around. Rock on.