Born In The, USA

ATTN: This will be a long read, but hopefully worth it!

So much has went down since my last post. Where do I begin? I'll start in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. We drove overnight from our show in Edmonton and got to Calgary real early in the morning. We stayed at a house with this band called Voices from Calgary who is AWESOME. Do yourself a favor and check them out right now. The next day we awoke and grubbed hard at Safeway. Matt and I spent a long time looking for Screamers. It's these incredible Canadian slurpees where you "drop the puck" and put a puck of vanilla ice cream in the slurpee. After that Matt and I hit the gym then headed back to Voices house, loaded up and went to the show.

>The drive into downtown Calgary was awesome. Such a rad city to be in. We played at this venue called The New Black Centre and it was probably one of the coolest venues I've been in. It was on these train tracks overlooking the city and it had huge perfect stairs to load up in. Calgary was easily the best show we've played so far and probably one of my favorite shows I've ever played on tour. A lot of kids came out and both us and Battle had really fun sets. After the show we ate at an amazing place called Tubby Dogs. They had vegan and regular hot dogs to eat plus any topping imaginable. Even peanut butter, jelly and cereal hot dogs. I got mine with a side of yam fires which were hands down the best fries I've ever had. Their onion rings looked like gigantic donuts. Out of this world late night food.

After Tubby Dogs we had to make a hellish 13 and a half hour drive from Calgary, Alberta to Langley, British Columbia. We left Calgary at 1:00am and drove through the Canadian rockies. All I can say is the drive was pretty awful. Hard to sleep and it seemed to never end. We finally rolled into Langley at 2:30pm and spaced off the entire day until it was time to play. The show was really weird and didn't even have a PA until 15 minutes before we played. The show ended up being a good time and we had fun screaming so loud after that a lady thought Matt and I were in a real fight.

>We left after the show and made the short drive into Vancouver to stay at the next venue we were playing at The Alf House. Everyone there was awesome and they led us to an amazing pizza place called Pizza Garden that used sesame seeds on their crust to make for amazing treat. After that we crashed out in anticipation to check out the great city of Vancouver. We awoke the next morning and got a great $2.95 breakfast at Bon's Off Broadway. Then it was time to explore the city. We split up to take a buddy to the airport and to legally purchase the dope plant. While some of us explored the city others enjoyed many of Vancouver's fine coffee shops. Matt and I walked down bum alley where Matt was approached and touched by a passing bum. Real scary shit.

On our away around the city in the Battle van we got to close to a Ford F1-50 and smashed their mirror with ours and completely ripped theirs off. Seconds later we saw a bum writhing in pain, grab his heart and fall on the ground. It was a lot to process in such a short amount of time. We checked out a lot of Olympic shit that was all around and it was really awesome. We finally met up with the boys at Crab Beach in the beautiful downtown. We cruised the city a little more together and yelled at some locals. Our buddies from The Alf House wanted to take us to another pizza joint called Fire Pizza. They also used sesame seeds on their crust and 2 slices and a soda was $1.25 cheaper than at Pizza Garden.

While eating pizza with friends a group of 15-20 cops formed across the street. It seemed strange but we didn't think anything of it. Suddenly we heard a huge group of people screaming at the top of their lungs. We look outside only to find a protest had formed right outside of the pizza shop we were at. It was a bunch of young punkers dressed in black. The sign they held read "COPS=PIGS=MURDERERS." As they chanted up the street Matt and Jim decided to join the protest and scream at the PIGS. We then listened as the protesters and local citizens clashed. We took the opportunity to take funny pictures in front of the protest and make a mockery of something these people actually cared about. I got great pictures and video I can show you all when I get home.

After that it was time for the show! We played at that sweet house we stayed at called The Alf House. The show was a really good time. Reminded me of going to shows at Ghost House pretty much. Got started real late and it was in a dusty old basement with some young punk rock hooligans. After the show we crashed out and awaited our last day in Canada. We woke up and hit up Bon's $2.95 breakfast again. Matt ran outside to grab something from the van and me, Gabe and Danny sat waiting for him to get back so we could pay for our bill. We finally just covered his portion when he didn't show up. We walked out to see what was going on only to see everyone else standing in front a 4 vehicle car wreck. Apparently an old lady thought the Battle van was leaving so she slammed on her breaks which caused 3 other people to slam on their breaks which caused everyone to crash. The last car was filled with 3 nuns who were screaming and crying while exiting the car. It was really intense. I think one of the nuns was injured pretty bad. Everyone kept telling the lady there's no way that the van was leaving and that she was nuts. A few people gave a statement to the cops then we were on our way.

Before we crossed the border we had to stop and exchange all of our money which took a lot longer than expected because we had to go to two different banks. After that it was USA bound. We got to the border around 3:00pm. I pulled up and handed the gentlemen our passports and our papers showing the shows we played in Canada. He threw the papers back at me and said he didn't need them. Then he told me to pull the van in a designated parking spot. Before I could even get the van into gear he told me "GO!" We pulled up to two more officers who seemed to think I didn't know how to follow a pointing finger or park a car. They kept yelling "THIS SPOT ON THIS SIDE! PULL UP TO THE WHITE LINE!" We exited the Winnie and they told us to leave our phones inside. I could tell at this point we were going to have an interesting experience trying to get back into our own country.

We went into the main building and stood in line for probably 30 - 45 minutes until it was finally our turn. I gave the cop a orange slip of paper that we received at the first stop. We were then told to take a seat and waited another long ass time before finally being called up. I filled out a single piece of paper for the band and the cop told me our merch wasn't a big deal and after he did some paper work we were free to go. After another long wait that cop told us he had other business to attend to and that we were getting assigned a new officer. After yet another long wait this new cop told us everything that guy told us and had us do was wrong so we had to re do it all. We all had to fill out new paper work and she told us we would be charged $11.00 to bring in our merch even though we originally got it in the states...it was a confusing ordeal. At this point Battle had already came in, gone through the line and left and they got there way after us. We knew at that point that something was wrong.

An officer with the K-9 unit told us he needed to have a word with us. He said he knew we were a band so knew that we were smoking in the van. He asked us if we had the day before and we said of course. He said that was fine and he understood we were in Canada. He then asked if his dog would find anything in the van and we honestly did not think he would so we said no. So he told us to wait while they searched the van. We could see them pulling everything out of the Winnie and toss all of our shit on the ground. It was raining outside and we figured that most of our shit was either wet or completely ruined. We figured we would be ok though because we cleaned out the van and thought any traces of the plant was long gone. After a while the K-9 officer came in holding a little bag and had a stern ass look on his face. He told us "didn't think he'd find it huh?" We looked in the bag that he was holding and it had probably 1 or 2 stems in there. We asked him what it was and where he found it. He took that as us being smart asses and got fucking furious. He told us we were "Americas finest" and that he couldn't wait to pat us down.

They finally started to take us into the back one by one. When you would go back there they'd take you into a holding cell and have you stand against the wall. Two officers then came in and one held your hands behind your back while the other officer handcuffed you. We were then deeply searched for probably 5 - 10 minutes. They even went through my hair for the better part of a minute. I felt like Saddam Hussein after the US caught him. They asked me why I had so much money on me and I told them it was the money we've made on tour and they didn't buy that. We all sat in there for a while then we were released on told to go back into the main hall and wait. Early word was that since I was driving they were going to give me a big fine. They took our ID's and then finally called us up to the front for our fate. The officer told us "We're not going to charge you with the stems, you guys are free to go." He then gave us comment cards, our passports and ID's and we were on our way outside. 3 fucking hours of being treated like shit then released just like that. The officer who gave me our passports told me "sorry about the wait."

We then walked outside only to find everything in our van all over the fucking ground. Aarons head was knobs down on the cement, my cab was sitting on it's side in a puddle of water, Danny's shit was all wet and our bags had all been gone through and fucked up beyond belief. The dudes outside didn't seem to interested in the fact that they had probably ruined all of our shit. We loaded up the Winnie then tried to leave the station. We got stopped again trying to leave because we didn't have this orange slip. Pissed off, we pulled over only to have someone finally wave us through and we were finally back in the USA. Welcome home, right? It was a pretty bummer ordeal and it put a damper on our spirits for the next few hours. Couldn't believe that we were waved into Canada and treated like complete shit trying to get back into the states. Played a cool show in Bellingham, Washington then drove an hour and a half to Seattle where I am right now typing this. Watching Saved By The Bell, waiting for Battle to pick up a friend then we're going to hit the city. Tonight we're playing @ The Viaduct in Tacoma. More updates soon.

*I guess in an earlier post I said WE dropped the N bomb and things got weird in Lethbridge, Alberta. It was the kids we were staying with who dropped it and we told them we don't say that and then things got weird. Sorry for the mix up*