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Subtle's For Hero : For Fool Tour Diary

By Dose One | 30 October 2006

9/8 to 9/13 Days one through five… ……….. the rehersal gauntlet.

dear diary.

things began at jordan’s wedding party, we all rejoiced and drank drinks beneath the emerryville moon…it was great to see dax, and quite a few of our old amoeba co-workers.why and the handsomeboy anticon youth crew showed up.

Somehow L-ron da-versafier turned up.

He and I sat and spoke on this era of rap and the next.he and I always had a certain sort of connection.so we mused about the indestructible and ever wild, P.E.A.C.E…and how pharcyde never rapped until they saw fellowship…apparently they were all dancers.and L-ron told me that “soulflower” was their first song, they ever recorded…which made me laugh outloud…since, back in 93, it was only after I heard that song that I read the source and saw that madcap and fellowship were also of this newschool L.a. scene.
So I told L-ron about me buying the only copy of inner city griots, at funkomart in philly…
And he told me about everlast trying to punk him at blowed many many moons ago, apparently everlast was rolling with a squad of rent-a-cholo’s.and danny-boy tried to fight pick on their behalf.

Then there was a weeks worth of nights on jeff’s couch and yoni’s hideabed…
Jeff and I threw around words and ideas for the next themselves.and he gave me his new demo…and I played the ones I’d been working on.
Yoni and I talked about women, therapy, our respective head spaces,
And then unfinished songs.

So we rehearsed at soundwave in Oakland,

apparently why? Is rehearsing there as well.
It was quite nice, we are used to practicing in an abandoned office in west Oakland…so this was like the ritz for us.

The hallways were lined with ginormous faithnomore posters, and digital underground…all signed…they even had a big ol’ tony tone toni plaque.

In the vending machine there were 9volts and rolling papers.

We added four new songs…a tale of apes I.a tale of apesII…nomanisisland.and midas gutz…we also did a pretty signifigant overhall on the mercury craze…and added the I heart L.a. II breakdown to I heart l.a.

And it all went pretty well…a tale of apes seemed to be the toughy…the others clicked quickly.but this way when we hit show 15 we still have a groove to get into…
Cause eventually your playing everything for a fifty-eth time, and wishing it were day one again, when you still knew not how these songs would work.


9/13…Drive day

We drive to grants pass.
And motel 6 it.
Nothing too exciting here…i spoke to Lawrence at astralwerks.for the first time.and he schooled me on this soundscan future that was thrust upon me.after all my anxiousness, it really isn’t a big deal at all.i simply have to be that much more of a flying merch bitch…

Well there was one exciting thing.we got the finished cd’s of for hero : for fool…i was of course paranoid that the cover would be upside down.or the booklet would be missing two pages.but alas, it just looks great…we were some very happy campers indeed.jordan and I swung by dax’s to drop off a stack.we embraced, and were off…

In the car I tried to generate new banter material, as I usually do, by being foulmouthed.we call it tour mouth.
I found a few endlessly humor-fringed tirades.to nurse.
And I also found another of the subtle/fog stolen romance novels from duke university.the first one, which I read from at the shows for interlude and laughter purposes.I painted up the cover and titled it, “when midnight comes” by henry Rollins.
This one I titled “sex, karate, and science” by albert Einstein.
And I had big plans for it.…but…see 9/15 Bellingham.

That night I dreamt.
I was a part of this collegiate traveling student group.we were attending a seminar in this ski-resort sort of a high rise building…and there was a rumor that robin pitt wanted to kick my ass for talking to his girlfriend…(robin pitt was my partner in crime/mind in highschool, we memorized rap, did drugs, and punched people and things).he had recently found me on myspace.hence his dream time cameo. Any way so after many odd and dream timed events, including a four alarm fire and a swimming pool full of two-foot piranha, which ate half the traveling class.things seemed to calm down.and there was still no sign of robin pitt anywhere…
Moments later I find myself in the parking garage, it is poorly lit…and I see one of my professors…who is locking her car and looking very nervous to traverse the dim lot alone.so I approach her, and startle her, and she sees it’s me and we begin to walk together toward the exit…

Parked just beside the exit is a navy blue pickup truck…as we get closer I can see there is someone sitting in the drivers seat…i squint to see who it is, and suddenly I just know it has to be robin pitt, come to kick my ass…so I tell the professor to run for the door, and she does…
As robin steps out of the car, and removes his hood, I realize it is none other than hulk Hogan…

So hulk takes me and slams me up against the wall.suddenly I’m wearing a bookbag…he rips it off my back and starts to rifle through it…he says he’s looking for weed.and he knows I have it, and if he finds it he’s going to kick my teeth in…suddenly he finds a ziplock bag…but as he pulls it out, it seems to be filled with dry bean sprouts…he looks pissed like I’m pulling a fast one.unbeknownst to him this bag of sprouts is a surprise to me as well…he thrusts his arm into the bag deeper and finds two full heads of lettiuce.which seems to piss him off even more…he thrust into the bookbag one last time…and finally finds a bag of weed…
He forces me to eat the bag of weed , ziplock baggie and all…
And then I wake up.

My pre-tour dreams are always some of my most fanciful and mundane at the same time…


9/14.Portland OR

jarring at best, there is this cold pool leap effect to the first night of tour…and I often feel pushed…into the deep end of counting t-shirts…doing whiteout pricetags…and finishing all my props and back drops…but we done did it…all was up and running with little to no pain…

And the show was great,…portland seems to specifically expand by 30 people everytime we come back…always a genuine laugh liking audience…in fact probably the most humor friendly audience we have…



And we vowed to always start at the doug fir…nothing like a nice hotel and restaurant.good sound, and an excuse to get drunk and stumble to your room some three feet from the venue exit…

They also have this massive bowl of salsa.ever daunting and middleclass rider proof…

Much to jordan’s chagrin,
Samweissgange the dj could not make the show, unfortunately…
He would harp on this for weeks to come.


9/15 bellingham WA


behold Bellingham…our new edition to our northwest u.s. romps…
The NEW Eugene…

We had played in eugene OR like clock work for some five years now…and when big abe neilson was there it was truly a great place to play.the wow hall and calyn always take care of us…but our last two adventures there seemed to be falling on deaf ears…all of the venue employees were front and center, and happy to have us…but the college town itself was not so gracious…

So we got a hot tip to switch to bellingham and we did…

And we had the best opener name by far… “stabbing hobo”…which makes me think of my young wigger friends from north philly, who used to light bums on fire and shoot them with bb guns…

Unfortunately, none of that happened…just rapping…

The audience was great.some very nice folks, and true believers in our solemn songs…

Also there was a very large woman, who came to me after the show, and said, “my cousin lives in orange county and has a record label”, and that she was rushing home to burn our new cd and send it off to her sister, and that we are as good as signed…

Another nice gentleman gave me a hand blown pipe, which was quite beautiful, but you can’t take them into Canada, so we donated it to the nice monitor man.

We saw the beginning of a new occurrence, all these nice folks were buying for hero : for fool…and then going out to the car and listening to it, and then coming back in to see the show…it reminds me of me.bent very certainly over the few things that move me…

Plus it’s nice to pass peoples first listen tests…i think our fans expect a lot from our records…and its nice to see that we deliver on their faces…

I think the girl working the door got me sick…she was coughing and so on.she even did the big cough in the hand, and then handshake maneuver…and said sorry I’m sick don’t get too close to me.

We didn’t see much of the town…but cept for the two dirt lots outside the venue…

Unfortunately, the fan as thief motif arose again…(and would continue to arise on this tour)…some of my appreciators are overcome with the urge to steal from me…and honestly, it makes me want to punch them in the face…
Some folks take forks, and that is part of that metaphor.and it’s fine.and elates me.

But when people steal my arms, or go for my skulls…it drives me crazy.I have a total insta-beatdown kneejerk reaction to it…
You can’t go stealing a man’s props…
so anyway…there was this kid trying to steal my skull.the house soundman told me he was keeping him at bay.and I let him have it.called him a thief at heart and all…later he came and apologized to me, and gave me a kiss on the cheek…

However when I returned to my keyboard stand, I found that
“sex, karate, and science” by albert Einstein.had been stolen…
Two days into the tour…
And my kind heart spoke hate yet again.

I need S1W’s to guard my props…


So the owner of the club takes me into the office to settle, and we share a joint…
And lo and behold find out we are both jersey boys…so we reminisce about dirt park floors and Bergen county.then he says to me, “want to see my prized possessions”…and I say “shure”.and he proceeds to show me a gigantic biz markie doll, complete with four finger ring and down syndrome glare, and next is his barbells signed by henry Rollins…and a cue ball with a bono death threat and Rollins autograph… And lastly we stashed our merch in their venue and made for Vancouver via seattle.


9/16 seattle wa.

as always we love playing at chop suey.always intimate and passion ready…
And frankly seattle has become one of our most gracious and large audiences to date…they know how to get our goat…and we theirs.

While prancing around looking for internet cafes…jordan and I found a poster for.radiodread…and they will be performing all of o.k. computer in reggae fashion.sadly we will miss it…

We also realized we wouldn’t be able to make it to the henry darger exhibit.which is truly a shame…my fiancé and I have been dying to see his work in the raw…

They closed my favorite.or rather the ‘across the street” junk shop and coffee spot…

I began to feel rather sick, chills throat sting and so on…but a manageable constitution quake…bellingham whooping plague.

We were the chopsuey headliner’s for the decibel festival…
And the venue was full of two things…very nice volunteers who love music and appreciate it to the bone…and self important “seattle” music scene tits who kept trying to tell me and Jordan where we can and can’t put our merch…

I digress…this is why I hate cmj and sxsw… the performances themselves usually go down in a conveyorbelt and nearly savage manner… Lambs to the distracted slaughter.of a half attentive, half self absorbed insider audience…

So, see you at south by southwest…xoxoxoxo

Anyway.so the night was long, we all felt ancient by the time we hit the stage.and I think our fans did as well.

So despite a less than focused monitor man, and over wired small club stage being used for a festival format…we had fun…


Tried to skin our songs for those who care…


9/17 vancouver BC



always a pleasure to cross borders…no…

while we love Vancouver and Vic island.and montreal.and toronto…
We also hate cops…
Cops are for cooking and eating.not talking to…

While we were in there, a little girl came in with her dad…she was maybe 5 or 6.she wore shades and instantly saw the border for the silly thing it is…
Eventually she tried to wake the stuffed snakes which they keep in a contraban tank…along with ivory…gator stew.tiger bone powder.and a monitor lizard pelt.

So long story short, we made it across the border…

Jeff and I got a new coloring book…(for the past 5 years, jeff and I have been.redrawing coloring books…usually and largely in a vulgar fashion…)


We hope to oneday.compile them ino a themselves coloring book…which will defiantly be rated R.

The one we picked up today is. “I know the zoo”…

We arrived at my apartment…and rejoiced in the presence of my fiancé…
and cat…
At the venue, all was sound.Malcolm our Vancouver promoter, is pure peach…great guy through and through…

We had a Sunday crowd…not with respect to attention span, but simply size wise…

Yet they held on by the ears to every last bit of subtle showtime…

I’d have to say this was the best show of the tour so far. There are a few people in the world who when they are in the audience…empower me to the enth degree…my fiancé erin.my pop…yoni wolf…tom brown and Robert curcio…

Don’t know why, but I feel as though I can do no wrong when they are around.

So we did both encores.and called it a night…

Ribs beer and pot were consumed at our apartment until the beds came calling for us…

p.s. we got a parking ticket.


>Read Part Two