Our own Blythe Archive

We're in Blythe, California, which is where you end up when your van breaks down between Los Angeles and Phoenix. This not the first time we've spent a night at the Budget Host motel in Blythe, having been there before with our pal Chad Matheny, who had been in Blythe before we had for the exact same reason. So I'm at Starbucks with my broken laptop and broken glasses stealing internet from a Best Western while the other guys are hanging out at the mechanic a few blocks away. It's 114 degrees here. I'm not exaggerating and Weather.com isn't either.

Blythe is weird in an engaging way. Our afformentioned buddy Chad is obsessed with this town and is about to release the third volume of his 4 part record series "The Blythe Archives" that you can hear by clicking on his name above. Our van was towed to an auto part store where the tow truck driver's friend met us and looked at our van for 35 dollars to tell us that our spark plug blew out and we have to get our gasket head re-threaded. I know what some of those words mean. We heard Beck, Feist and Friendly Fires at the Hispanic grocery store, and the Starbucks was playing Wilco when I came in, which isn't quite as weird.

We had to cancel Phoenix which is a bummer because it looked like the most promising show we've had booked there. If the van gets repaired within the hour then we have 22 hours to make it to Austin in time for load-in. Mapquest gives that drive 16 hours and 30 minutes, and that doesn't include the two hours that the time zones will rob from us.

This makes things feel a little better, and so does this. I'm finding little comfort in the thoughts that people have it worse than meMy mood will improve greatly after a visit to Lenscrafters in Austin, but for now super glue will have to do.