So… the Republic of Austin shoot was a lot of fun.  We were supposed to film on top of a dead end train track in west Austin but found the creek below surrounded by the bridge’s massive infrastructure much more aesthetic and twice as cool in the 108 degree heat.  Chris had great vision for the shoot and we’re all looking forward to the final product.

 Afterwards we beat the heat by heading over to Wingz Up for our Fantasy Football draft consisting of members of Western Ghost House, Pack of Wolves and New Roman Times. It’s fair to say that I pretty much had the best draft overall (barring any injuries) and that Steven Garcia’s Los Blue Demons is the worst fantasy football team ever created.  His starting lineup will be posted at a later date.

Saturday’s show at Frank went as good as I could imagine and we had a great time hanging out with friends old and new.

The worst event of my week happened yesterday while I was riding my bike home from work.  I was strolling along listening to an audio book through my single, right earpiece and came to a stop sign.  I approached the intersection with caution looking ahead, left and right and when I realized there were no cars coming from either direction I continued to pedal through the stop sign seeing no reason to break and slow my momentum up the very steep hill.  At that point a middle aged man pulling out of a convenience store parking lot on his Huffy mountain bike yelled at me “Respect our neighborhood stop signs!”  I’m not a confrontational person at all so I rode on but it ruined my day.  What the fuck man!  I can approach an intersection at 8 miles an hour and realize there’s no danger to me or any passing pedestrians because I’ve been doing it since I’ve been 3 fucking years old and I’m not dead or in jail…. so shut the fuck up!  I could go on and on about this but it would be pointless so I’ll leave it at that.

But things are going good.  Michael will start mixing the record next week and we’ll have it mastered on the 20th.  Until next week….

- JP 

… and what a fine one it was!  Friday night we played Frank with a couple amazing bands; One Hundred Flowers and San Antonio’s Cartographers. Marcus Rubio joined us onstage playing violin and sax on a couple of songs.  After the show he and his girlfriend Hanna stayed in my luxurious second story loft and proceeded to record the final string arrangements for the album the next morning.  We’re done!!!! We’re done!!! And man does it feel good being one step closer to pushing this heavy burden that is our love child into the world.  After this it’s mixing, mastering and daiquiris… oceans of daiquiris.  But until then we have lots of great things coming up.  On Tuesday we’re recording a voyeur music video with Republic of Austin.  Thursday night is our friend, engineer and producer John Michael Landon’s birthday bash and Saturday we will be back at Frank with New Roman Times and Dead Black Hearts!  Lots and lots more after that.

- Jesse