Day 8
The Ocho.
Like Jesus did on this weekend, many years ago, I rise from a death-like slumber on a blowup mattress at Liam’s brother’s house.
It is 7 am, an ungodly hour - sorry, Jesus - and it’s time to leave the holy land of Halifax.
The rest of the lads are in a van outside waiting for us. Liam and I didn’t make it back to our set destination last night. The lights at The Local shone too bright, and like moths to a neon sign, we flew headfirst into the dangers of late-night beer specials and pizza that was better than it had any right to be at a bar at 2 in the morning.
I put my cool sunglasses on, climb into the backseat, and wake up 4 hours later at the Long & McQuade in Charlottetown. Time travelling is a good nap in a friend’s car.
We are at the Long & McQuade in Charlottetown to pick up some mics. Before leaving on tour, we had grand plans of writing and recording an entire EP on our off days in PEI, so we’re here to grab some equipment to help achieve that lofty goal.
But standing here under the incredibly unsexy fluorescent lighting, hungover as shit and thinking about how all of these stores always smell the same, I wonder if we may have put too much emphasis on effeciency and not enough on rest and relaxation.
It takes an eternity to rent microphones. The guy does not seem to know where anything is. I use this time to try out every instrument in the store. Liam and I engage in an electronic drum solo battle - everyone in the building enjoys it, I’m sure. I sit and play the piano for a while. I really need to get a piano. I wish they made them out of a lighter material. Maybe a foldable cardboard piano system. That would be good.
Eventually, we leave the store and return to our refreshing Atlantic digs. When we arrive, Seb says he’s not feeling well, and we’re all pretty burnt out. This is going to be a day of rest and relaxation after all.
I spend most of the afternoon writing, I’m really enjoying keeping this journal. I can with 100% certainty say that I’ve never written close to this much in my entire life. In fact, I think the closest I’ve come to this much sustained literary output (quote unquote) is my 5th grade story “The Monkey’s Cage” (day one subscribers to the substack will be familiar with this), and that was about twenty years ago. I hope I continue to write more regularly after this tour is over, and I feel an abundance of gratitude to all of you who have taken the time to read these; it means a lot.
Elliott makes pasta for dinner (it’s great), and we watch the debate. Mark Carney doesn’t look into the camera when he answers questions, I wonder if it will hurt his chances of winning, or if it may come off as ‘normal guy’ behaviour and actually increase his popularity. I can’t be sure, but I do know that I am a very conflict-averse person, and seeing people argue makes me very uncomfortable, so I tend to avoid watching things like debates. We turn it off after dinner.
We decide to take mushrooms.
Mushrooms are a mixed bag for me. I’ve had good experiences, but I tend to get pretty anxious and uncomfortable. And also hot, I don’t know why, but mushrooms light my body on fire, which is a scary thing to experience while on mushrooms. So we only take a little, just to mix up the vibes.
We write one of the strangest songs ever, I still can’t tell if it’s brilliant or awful. It’s definitely something.
Finally, at the apex of our soft-trip, we decide to go to the beach. We still haven’t touched the ocean since arriving out east, and this seems like a pretty good time to do it.
As soon as we exit the building, though, we realize there may not be a worse time to do it. The moon has not shown up. I can’t even tell if it’s cloudy because it’s so fucking dark but what I can tell is there is nothing in the sky to illuminate our path, it is pitch black.
We try our best to navigate with what little visual information our eyes are downloading, but it’s honestly kind of terrifying, and also, I have a broken ankle, so it’s probably safer if we get a light going.
Eventually, after what I imagine was a beautiful walk down the road, we climb some sand dunes and reach the roaring infinity that is the Atlantic Ocean. I can’t even fucking see it really. It’s that dark. Elliott asks if I can take his picture, so I do.
We head home and watch the rest of Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. I can’t sleep, so I stay up late and make it a double feature by throwing on Superbad. Michael Cera is amazing, we’ve got to get him out to a show or something.
Tomorrow is our last show of this leg of the tour, and it’s on Good Friday! It should be a pretty transcendental time. I can’t wait to see what Charlottetown is all about. Talk to you then.