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Posted on September 20, 2010 at 02:47 AM
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Hello Raccoons!
I’m writing to you today from Teany café in the Lower East Side of Manhattan -Listening to a 4 yr old girl order “Tofu scramble on toasted baguette” but making sure that the cream cheese is vegan, and “ONE slice of tomato not TWO”. Hey guess what? GO FUCK YOURSELF. I ate Cheerios every day when I was your age. REGULAR sawdust Cheerios. Not even Honey Nut, u little dick.
Sorry, I get easily distracted… anyway, Teany is owned by Moby, has an adorable staff and the most VAST selection of exotic teas you’ll ever find…
As you know, I'd rather snort ANTHRAX than suffer through the music selection at Starbucks, so this is a perfect nook for me to hide like a unibomber, in my hoodie, and reflect on the SECOND HALF of our tour with Smashing Pumpkins and Bad City.
Picking through my treasured heap of wrinkled bar napkin notes, and scanning over gigabytes of Blackberry pics, it’s easy to relive the excitement of this leg of the tour… As jaded as we think we’ve become, and despite our decade-long friendship w/ Billy, there were STILL geek-ed out moments each day when we felt like SP Superfans, who, by some stroke of Mentos Commercial luck, got to share the stage with our heroes.
ORLANDO,
FL:
Not a break area? Oh I respectfully disagree, sir.
People don't realize... but Florida is another world. In the blunt words of the ear specialist i consulted before the show, "It's a weird mix of old people and the criminally insane."
Within the same state you have some of the most cosmopolitan, sophisticated minds living among a large population of sketchy inbred maniacs who, evidently, still need to be informed that, 'Yes, the Civil War DID end..like 145 years ago.. and... yeahhh.. you lost.. sooo... Progress? Culture? Maybe try it out? Take it for a walk, see how it feels?
What else... Alligators.. REAL ONES. -even on the side of the highway...and some of the best strippers in the world. Am i missing anything? Tourists. Oh, -and some of the most incredible music fans anywhere.
Case in point:
Pumpkins destroying the crowd as usual
Some of the best fan tattoos i've seen
-DAY OFF- DISNEY WORLD
i puked here when i was 7. Guess what.. i'm baaaack.
Teacups. This ride is a godamn nightmare, and much like Nickleback, i have NO IDEA why it's successful. How many times do you need to spin around in a circle? honestly.
As you know by now, I don't 'do' direct sunlight.
This is me sitting with a complete random family. You can tell the dude in the back is really stoked.
Here i am with that blue furry thing.. from that one movie about that blue furry thing.
Tribute to Leota Toombs outside the Haunted Mansion--(my fav ride as a kid)
[Dear sweet leota ; Beloved by all ; In regions beyond now ; But having a ball]
FT. LAUDERDALE, FL:
Best overheard quote from hillbilly bouncer at venue: “Every now and then I gotta get nasty w someone. 'Cos there are some people out there that need some nasty to be gettin' at them.”
Personally, this show was a bit of a struggle vocally… i took all precautions; warm ups, steam, hydrating, resting, and yet, whenever i tried to reach for a note at the very top of my range, and I sounded like this goat….
The crowd was fantastic, tho, and very forgiving.
This toad was outside our hotel. He was standing up yappin away about how much of a fan he is.. singing our songs and everything... then i pull out my camera and he sits down, turns around and acts all cool.
Greg DJ'd the after-party, and it was the first real chance for ALL 3 bands and crews to finally hang out together. Great night.
TAMPA,
FL:
It was in Tampa that our guitar tech, Wooter, first started referring to his penis as a “meat thermometer.”
Backstage before the show, i literally wretched laughing backstage from this vid that Tom from Bad City showed me. I think i broke my fallopian tubes
KNOXVILLE, TN:
GPS took us through the smoky mountains on narrow, very very steep back roads. -Burned through brake pads, but saw some beautiful scenery.
Small perks to a life on tour. Woke up next to this quiet lake in Tennessee.
Solid show.. solid fans...
As it turns out, ogres and goblins prefer metal, but GENIES LOVE Smashing Pumpkins.
Can you believe, he almost FORGOT to bring his gigantic 8 ft crystal-covered staff to the show.. Now THAT could have been embarrassing.
Kat Turner and Nicole Fiorentino enjoy the 'champagne of beers' backstage.
C'mon America. How are we going to continue making fun of Canada if WE keep making signs like THIS?
PITTSBURGH, PA:
We love playing Pittsburgh. On the ride up we blasted Sigur Ros as we winded thru the lush Pennsylvanian hills -passing several sad, eerie, coal mining towns, straight out of Deer Hunter.
The venue is in a haunted old church, which we've played many times before. It was pouring rain outside during the sets, and this was probably my favorite performance of the tour. It was also my first and only time taking steroids (Prednisone) for my swollen vocal chords.
WESTCHESTER, PA:
Sign in shop window:
"Monica" makes punctuation her bitch.
Stuffed leopard in a shop window. NEED THIS.
Today was a day off on the SP tour, so we booked a headlining show at Bam Margera's club, The Note. It was a blast to play a full 75minute set in front of some of our biggest fans and favorite people.
-saw some more wonderful fan tattoos.
Of course, the REAL entertainment came after the show when we all slept over at Bam's house.
Predictably, it was a total riot... thank you so much to Bam, Novak, and the entire posse for welcoming us into your psychotic world xo
The next day at Starbucks, I demonstrated what body part Novak had placed on our drummer, Paul's face while he was passed out at 4am.
NYC, NY:
NYC was predictably EPIC. The show was at Terminal 5, and was hosted by SPIN Magazine as part of their 20th anniversary celebration.
My fav pic from the tour
Our friends at Harley Davidson displayed some of their new bikes outside before the show... i'm literally obsessed with the new matte black IRON 883
The venue is only 2 blocks away from the USS Intrepid aircraft carrier.
WAIT. Sir... SIR! i think you're holding the camera the wrong... !!! Oh nevermind.
Well played, sir.
-with my bff, impresario Josh Madden after the show
Fan from Wisconsin presented me with this terrifying doll...
FLIGHT BACK TO CHICAGO
CHICAGO, IL.
Teenage dreams coming true...
Standing on the Metro marquis hours before homecoming show (benefit for Through The Pain)
My first time getting acupuncture backstage..
Attempting to re-memorize the lyrics to 1979: "...And we don't know just where our bones will rest. To dust I guess. Forgotten and absorbed to the earth below." beautiful.
ANDDD... This is surreal. Hours later... one of the highlights of our entire touring history: Joining Billy and the band on stage.
It was hard to say goodbye. Total separation anxiety before we even left...
There moments of real magic on this tour... the ghosts of the theatres were good to us... some unforgettable times were had, and some lasting friendships were forged.
Thank you to the crew members of all the bands.. whose sweat and blood (and smoke) behind the scenes kept the circus rolling... and SPECIAL thanks to the fans who supported the tour.. some traveling great distances to multiple shows... the real believers.. you're everything. xo
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@ Molly-Rose. @Hitch Fan. @ Raccoon Society,
Hey Hitch Fan & Raccoon Society, Hey Molly-Rose :)
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I perused a quote about reason and faith, here, so just wanted to leave a quick insight. Times still ticking. So, get ready, like the countdown goes, remember get your dose of Caffeine and ample supply ready, time is here and now, handy keys to the DeLorean, ready, count it down .... 4,3... is seven,2,1... twenty-one go!
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Bringing in “reason” as a debatable perspective is an arbitrary moot inception of hanging on over a cliff after getting caught in suspended animation. In earnest, I’d rather crony up with a like-minded anarchist that befuddles the imposition-ers of faith is somehow equatable to ever be torn asunder by absence of reason as a supposed and dull exploitive of why not to have faith or presumes faith constraints reason. How tired and bored is that perspective, faith is sans reason, etcetera, as how tired and uninspired the word medley of “how tired and uninspired” is in a sentence. Truly, think, open-mindedly, if you are going to stand to incept reason into the mixture.
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Faith is not constraint of reason. Human expectations are the constraint of reason. When you expect an outcome, expecting defies the natural progression of reason and the possibilities of reason, cause and natural common-sense by reason. Esp if an expectation is only geared or rendered for a specific outcome that is meant to propagate a furnished idea – that is what constraints reason and undermines reason. Faith itself is not a constraint in and of itself.
Faith scrutinizes reason in the same manner that reason scrutinizes faith. Even if you are construing my comments in a sense of Biblical faith, (my own affections on Faith is, faith is faith, regardless of own individual’s personal sentiments) it should be applied to bare it as a pertinent truth of your conscience, if it is in tune with your own accordance of Faith. The insight is similar of a notion and passage Mat Devine shared in a previous entry, from the Bible in 1 Thessalonians “"Test all things and cling to that which is good." 1 Thes. 5:2
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The insight is, by mere contemplative states of the least of reality that is truly, utterly, ever known or knowable is dependent upon the realization those that follow the limited intelligence of humanity are no different or variable than those who believe in an infinite power or being. Except, that, the latter ones are not contained w/ limits of other people’s interpretations as to what the individual(s) believe or have faith in believing. In other words, of course, there is an open defiance of censorship. As the effect of censorship in many formulations is non-productive or progressive, plus attempts to suppress individuality and environmental compatibility and functionality. Individuals have an innate right and will, to believe / have faith in what sets their own life in accord with how they truly feel and be able to live according to a sound in-tact own conscience. The utopic is it ought to be a morally/ethically approach that is not projecting undue negative renderances into another person’s life. Give and take , choose battles, our world is further everyday from a utopia considering the majority has shunned itself to ignoring the dystopic qualties that are here right now and that media at large has veiled in elaborate dunce cap shrouding that dystopic societies are in the future although the dystopic future written about as Fiction is actually happening now. If you need hot lead dead giveaway tell-tale, read the Hunger Games. Reality shows and a corresponding match like Survivor and the way our governments handle it citizens and slowly revolve into revolutions is starkly illuminating in contrast to what science and governments would sooner have you believing recently. Citric awakening happens, just like heads up 7-up, goes round by round like kisses on the forehead of what you’re willing to fight for and go to battle.
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Morning tune ready for the day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSkb0kDacjs
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Personally, I think, plus, prefer, to be limitless w/ willingly choosing to have faith in an infinite that harkens possibilities that exuberate all realities and endless potential for the greater good and bless those who are willing with talents that incorporate into their environments rather than something that devoids humanity of its own existence and destroying itself within by the contraptions of limiting itself like is so often seen and has already been duly established by the acts of science and people having a follow mentality to the state of science and scientists own propulsions of ideas and constructed basis’s that are feasibly assembled for mass production to the herd mentality that those of lower I.Q’s or sheer follow mentality will gobble up without having to test and proof it and prove that the theory itself or basis of scientific belief is sketchy. Esp taking into vantage perspective, equal opportunity intelligent licensures that can compute the information readily on-hand and disseminated to be shredded apart by the citizens sans academic luxury degrees handling inspecting statistics, quantities and exacts, in other words, the scientific misnomers blatantly compiled as derivations alleged to be fact sans exact intricate intra-acted ways of actually testing and provable.
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Thus this ///.... “"Faith is the surrender of the mind; it's the surrender of reason, it's the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other mammals. It's our need to believe, and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me." ~ Christopher Hitchen ...////
The quoted sentiment is also a mentality that ought be evenly distributed and thus applied to science in the same rigor of scrutiny; otherwise, science in a whole would be an easily reasonable standing on reason sham completely. People whom fully put their faith (be earnest and real, that that’s what is happening) into science, as a bunch of atheists often do blindly, are, again, as I wrote briefly to “Fellow Heathen” no different than the people they claim they are different from whom have faith including certain atheists that are attempting to devalue those individuals whom believe faith in God or deity/deities, et al. So, let’s prevent the ostracization by some ethos that eludes incorporating the fragility of the argument done towards only shunning the hypocrisy of its actions in statement, as is clear with the ///....“Of all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated.”...//// bit of the quote. Anyone with a brain embedded permeating reason plus own foresight is able to tear it tinker tape red, pulling apart the fallibility of the application of exclusion. So, well, let’s say it for what it is, for those who may get a bit riled or bewildered by the notion that that Hitchens quote has to be able to stand soundly to its own accord and then some to win over anything in such a debatable topic of query. Which whoever posted it aka the person behind “Hitch Fan” left it to, what is surmised as an attempted permissive gainer for something it isn’t rather than be seen for what it is. It is what it is; so let it stand to be, and let it be what it is.
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So, what to do, what to do…carry a smile, just smile at all times, esp. smitten. :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKrbAUjBbvU&ob=av2e
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Charles Kingsley, said, ///....“And we shall be made truly wise if we be made content; content, too, not only with what we can understand, but content with what we do not understand—the habit of mind which theologians call—and rightly—faith in God.”...////
If you consider the application of – ///....“we shall be made truly wise if we be made content; content, too, not only with what we can understand, but content with what we do not understand”...//// – you would sooner or later come to deriving the conclusion, if you apply it to theologians that it would then need fairly be dispersed to be applied to scientists and science’s schematics, as well.
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Since, yes, a bunch did catch the flip-syde subtleties and am no longer so-so much M.I.A on-the-grid stats as prior (except at a backwards C//S, let those bones right ;) and sticking true and loyal to odes n’ codes Patrick Henry stylistic lovers “Give me Liberty or Give me death” stance of a prose writer and a bit of an unconventionalist, by art and its unconfined nature, I’d rather par up with movers and doers and standers, with the following quotes. As, this vantage scope of the playing field is where and why art comes into play and tests the grounds. Art endures. Art offers the companionship of the formidable connections of now, urgency and longevity. Legacy – such a regale atoning attenuation intonation inflection to the word while delivering an infliction to naysayers. Cruxly, appropos, regardless, if all there is, is this, every day, every time, I’d rather know within all is aligned in my soul anytime death knocks. Just, must gotta have something to share and faith upon for all those marvelous and wonder-filled death feats after-all. Nil sin Numine.
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Maybe humanities’ expectations need to be readjusted? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HO1OV5B_JDw
“Skepticism Is The Beginning Of Faith.” ~ Oscar Wilde
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///....“In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't.”...//// ~ Blaise Pascal
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///....“I heard once of an American who so defined faith, "that faculty which enables us to believe things which we know to be untrue." For one, I follow that man. He meant that WE SHALL HAVE AN OPEN MIND, AND NOT LET A LITTLE BIT OF TRUTH CHECK THE RUSH OF THE BIG TRUTH, like a small rock does a railway truck. WE GET THE SMALL TRUTH first. Good! We keep him, and we value him, BUT ALL THE SAME WE MUST NOT LET HIM THINK HIMSELF ALL THE TRUTH IN THE UNIVERSE.”...//// ~ Bram Stoker, Dracula
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///....“We fall from womb to tomb, from one blackness and toward another, remembering little of the one and knowing nothing of the other...except through faith.”...////~ Stephen King
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///....“That in such righteousness /// To them by faith imputed they may find ///
Justification towards God, and peace /// Of conscience.”...//// ~ John Milton
Ciao.
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///catch the captcha exjst9////