December 24th, 1998
We got into the van and a bottle of water was completely frozen. The inside of the window was all ice and there was snow outside. Once we turned the heater on everything was nice. We drove about 14 hours to S.F.
It was so hard to fall asleep in the van. Once I did I kept waking up. When we got to S.F. we all went to a vegetarian restaurant and afterward we went to Richard's house. He is the soundman. Jen, Gidget, Katrina, Matt and Eric (Aus Rotten) and I checked out some record stores. Somehow record stores don't interest me anymore, because I stopped collecting records. Katrina and I really wanted to check out the info shop and the anarchist center but due to time limits we weren't able to. Katrina was very
disappointed that we weren't able to go.
Late night we all went to the beach and sat around the fire and talked. I ate some left over Chinese food and realized that my sleeping and eating pattern is now totally abnormal. I am not eating 3 meals a day like I used
to at home. And due to the cold weather people are getting sick. To top it off Richard got a flat tire.
December 25th, 1998
I woke up very cold. Richards pad has wooden floors. His house reminds me of a squat. Some of the stuff on the wall in the room and the bathroom looks very old or not completely built.
Richards roommate had a cool book collection from the 60's and 70's. I remember talking to him about George Jackson yesterday. Katrina is very sick and throwing up. We were all invited to meet Adrian from Spit boy and have dinner with her. Everyone went except Katrina and I. I decided to stay and take care of her because she is feeling so bad. So Katrina and I ended up going to Gidgets sisters apartment in Oakland. The pad needs some serious vacuuming. The carpet is very dirty and it seems unhealthy to breathe the air in this apartment. The kitchen is messy with a stove that needs serious cleaning. I had to watch what I stepped on in that room. However it is warm in here and it's good that Gidget trusts Katrina and I to stay at her sisters pad. Her sister was away for Christmas. Katrina woke up from her nap and said she would be taking the Amtrak home tomorrow if she doesn't feel better by then. I told her to just fly home instead. I'm going
to get good rest now so I can perform well tomorrow.
December 26th, 1998
We left to meet Jeff Marshall at a record store. Jeff used to play bass for Autonomy and he flew up from Orange County to hang out with us. Jeff, all the members from Resist and Exist, Marck Bruback, and Eric (Aus Rotten) all went to the Long Haul info shop but it was closed. We grabbed some food and went to Gliman Street. There were a lot of people there. Only 3 bands and 3 poets were performing that day.
The first band was called Lesser than Two. The other poet was a sister named Fly from N.Y. Wendy from Occidental and of course Marck performed as well. Fly is really well known because she is also an artist. She did a lot of the art work for Slug and Lettuce fanzine. Resist and Exist went on and after seeing the size of the crowd I was nervous as hell. Again, I am not used to playing shows this big. We made more mistakes at this show than at any other show on the tour. I guess it wasn't just me that was nervous! Even my speech was not coming out right. After our set I felt really ashamed about it and hoped that it was all a bad dream and that it never really happened. But surprisingly people actually came up to me after our set and thanked us for coming to S.F. Maybe they felt sorry for us, who knows? Neil got up on stage and talked about the upcoming Regional Primate Tour.
Aus Rotten did a really good set and made the crowd all crazy. I was really happy to see Edy, who used to play guitar for Autonomy. He lives in S.F. now. Ramsey from AK Press came to the event and another person named Pete the roadie from England was there too. He is long time friends with Sub
Humans. Even members from Tribe 8 came to the show to see Aus Rotten and Adrian from Spit boy sang with them. One of the Gilman St people came up to me and said he'd never seen so many banners hung there before. We had tons of banners and the walls were covered with political graphics and slogans.Neil had his distro along with tons of animal rights literature....and there were videos of direct action and protests.
After the show a lot of people went to the bar. I'm at the bar writing this now. This place is packed with
punks. I really hate bars and hate to watch people drink. I mean right now
people are at least having a good time and socializing but I don't
understand why they need alcohol to enjoy themselves. Even punks who did
not drink all hung out here.
