two weeks on tour

a lot can happen in two weeks. it was about that long ago that we all piled on the bus for another run on the Stellar Kart tour with Seventh Day Slumber and Kiros. it's actually been pretty fun so far. i would love to just bore your brains out with paragraphs and paragraphs of detail but instead i thought i'd make it a little interesting and include some highlight pictures. and these pictures are going to help illustrate the TOP 8 THINGS I LEARNED ON TOUR

1. STELLAR KART FANS ARE CRAZY

and by crazy i mean can do crazy things. this girl came up to us in the signing line and i am not sure how it came up that she can contort her leg like this. it's painful to even look at. but it makes for a funny picture. if any of you have any freakish, i mean crazy abilities, come see us in the signing line and i'll document and post on this blog.

2. PAWN SHOPS ARE AMAZING

check this OUT --

this was in probably the coolest pawn shop i've ever been in. oh, and for those of you who don't know this - i LOVE pawn shops. pawn shops are the guy equivalent to how girls love Target. i love finding deals at pawn shops. but it's usually used music gear, guns and electronics. this shop had not one, but TWO Mrs. Pac Man arcade games. which leads me to the next thing i learned -

3. @ThisEdwinOrtiz NEEDS TO OWN THIS!!

how cool is this bike?? i mean seriously. the handle bars are way up high like a chopper. and notice the extra wide banana seat. it's decked out in all black and chrome. and the best part is the car transmission shifter style gear shift.

4. I DO HAVE THE ABILITY NOT TO MAKE A DIRTY JOKE

that, my friends, is the Thinker - yes, the famous statue of a guy thinking. we saw this at the art museum on kansas city last week. any of you who have seen the will ferrel SNL sketch where he is a nude model probably knows the exact joke pose that i was thinking about at this very moment. (the thinker? or the stinker!!) but i guess i'm growing up cause i stood there like a champ and now have a picture that i can show my grandchildren without embarrassment. next on the list is mental filter to sort out what i say.

5. I HAD THE BEST FISHING DAY EVER

ok, so that's not really something i "learned" on this tour, but how can i catch 12 giant catfish and NOT post the picture??? one day in oklahoma i asked if there was anywhere good to fish....and yes, OF COURSE i bring my fishing gear with me on tour. anyway, a nice guy named Fred told us about a small pond that had big catfish and they wanted them OUT. so we obliged. ya know how we caught these guys?? HOT DOGS. yup. all you need are some fresh weiners to catch some stinky catfish. and what's even better is that a nice older guy cleaned and filet'd them for us and we grilled them at the bus. SOOO GOOD. also pictured are @jeremihough, @briancalcara and @jordanmesser- all who, i must mention, refused to even touch the fish. i mean, they're good guys but i won the manliest man competition that day. i guess no one likes hands that smell like fish.

6. ADAM'S GREAT GRANDPA IS AWESOME

ok so that's not a picture of adam's great grandpa, that's me shooting a gun at his farm. we had a day off in oklahoma and of course we're going to shoot guns. have you guys not learned this about me yet?

7. OKLAHOMA HAS THE MOST UNHEALTHY FOOD EVER

this heavenly entree is from Del Rancho in Moore, Oklahoma. this wasn't some random joint we found - this was recommended by multiple friends and family who don't even know each other. that is a chicken fried steak sandwich and onion rings. i had 3 heart attacks later that night.

8. SHARK IS SOOOOO GOOD TO EAT

that, my friends, is a FREAKING SHARK. in corpus christi, TX we had a couple guys take a bunch of us on the tour fishing off of a pier on south padre island. in addition to many people getting very sunburned, we also caught a lot of fish. this shark was caught by @josephrojas. @adamagee caught a nice pompano and i only got a couple blue runners. our guide caught a similar sized shark and another fisherman ended up giving us a shark that he caught. so OF COURSE we took it back to the bus and grilled them. seriously i want to start my own cooking show where cameras follow us on tour and we have to find local food and we can only use a grill. anyway, i cut up shark steaks, we cooked them in garlic, pepper, salt, butter and olive oil. oh, and i found out that apparently the mercury content in a fish is what makes it taste fishy. and the best way to get rid of the mercury is to soak the fix in milk. ya, seriously, milk. so we soaked in milk for an hour and it was seriously some of the best fish i've ever put in my mouth.

so the moral of this story is - when on tour, go fishing, shoot stuff, go to pawn shops and maybe do something interesting instead of just parking the bus at a mall. seriously, i know of some bands out there who almost refuse to do anything fun or interesting because they're stuck in a rut and the ONLY thing they'll ever do on a day off is park at a mall. i mean, that's cool. it's your life. you can do whatever you want. but we all only have a short time on this earth and if you want to stay in a bubble, that's cool. but i'm gonna at least enjoy it. and i've got the pictures to prove it.