Oh what a relief it is...

Finally a day that wasn't a crazy whirlwind at any point of the day. It was nice, calm and relaxing. Of course there were points when things became urgent and needed to get done, but the fires were put out rather quickly and painlessly. I also got to have a taste of Jamba Juice. I am still not exactly sure what it is, but it tasted good! It was like an orangey smoothy frozen drinky thingy. Sounds good, huh? Tim Taber also noticed yesterday that I have been wearing all "Joe" shirts. He was the second person to notice and say something. Sean the drum tech for Robert Randolph was the first. I cannot wait to have these next 3 days off. Even if 2 of them are travel days.

You Can Count On Me!

The Count has been travelling with us. He appears randomly and people enjoy his presence as he "counts" on us to get things done! He has counted spiders on the wall. He has counted cobwebs in the hall. He has counted candlesticks on the shelf. And when left alone - he counts himself!

This is Ike in his bunk on the bus. Switchfoot has their manager sleep under the bus to keep their creativity level at it's highest and as secretive as possible.
Just Kidding. He's just resting.

Biff Tannen and Mike Sever

Today i got to meet 2 celebs in one day! Tom Wilson (who played Biff in "Back to the Future") and Kirk Cameron (who played Mike Sever in "Growing Pains"). Things also got a little rough today for an hour or so, but we pulled through it.

More Fame Knows My Name

I met yet another famous person today! Dave Ellefson of Megadeth. Although I was not ever a fan of Megadeth, it was still really cool to meet him. He was a really nice guy and is now a Christian with a band called Megalife (from what I was told second-hand, I cannot verify this to be true). Either was it was pretty cool. Tomorrow we have more stars to meet than any other show from what I was told. Biff from back to the future and Mike Seaver. Or Tom Wilson and Kirk Cameron if you like to use peoples real names.

See Titles Below...

I have so much to talk about and so many working titles in my head, but I am only doing one post of everything instead of several in an hour.

Lights! No More Cameras! Action!
For the last four shows we have had a camera crew following everyone (mostly the band) around taping for what is hopefully to be a video available at a bookstore near you. The cameras were...interesting...I don't know how Gene Simmons does it. They were there pretty much 24-7 following people to see what they are doing and how everything fits together to pull off the best show in Christian Music. It was interesting just to see how they do things from the backside of the camera, to get our side of the camera to look and sound great. Who knows, maybe I will be in the background looking pretty for the camera...please, no autographs or pictures...

"Feeling Blue" or "All is Fair" or "Fair/UnFair"
I finally did it! I won a Blue Ribbon at the fair! That's the good news. Bad news is that is wasn't for photography (I am still striving for that next year). I won for a t-shirt that I designed and created myself. There are some pictures from the fair below...

Gnash-ville

Gnash-ville: to have the sound of gnashing ringing in your ears from running around non-stop in the midst of way too many people in one place at one time, specifically Nashville. The beginning of the day started out slow as I tried to wake up, and just could not. Juice did not help. Snickers did nothing. Amp energy drink was futile. Only the rush of 5:30pm on show day could get me going again. Once 5:30pm hit it was every man for himself. Or in my case every man for Third Day and Switchfoot in the meet'n'greet. And then things kept going in the office for a while as they had interviews to do and we had the box office having issues with someone else's tickets but only had our number so we couldn't help them. I also was able to meet Tim Taber (for the second time. I did not realize it was him the first time.) Tim Taber was the lead singer of The Prayer Chain in the 90's. Their song "Worm" is still one of my favorite songs of all time. I also now realize first hand what Elizabeth means when she adds on "...and the whole school has tiles..." when she talks about how bad her feet hurt at the end of the day. My feet hurt. I cannot wait for a day of relaxation.

Ice, Ice Baby

Ice Ice
Stop. Collaborate. And listen. Here is my frustrating story of the day. I have to ice buses as one of my chores. That just means I make sure the built in coolers are full of drinks and ice. I got all the buses iced other than Third Day's. And today was a day when instead of having the 20lb bags, they had the 40lb bags of ice. I carry the bag of ice on my shoulder to Third Day's bus and enter as usual. I set the ice down to check the drinks to make sure they were stocked before I did the ice. I stocked the drinks, iced the cooler and then grabbed the ice to continue to the back of the bus to check the drinks of the second cooler and ice that one. As soon as I got past the carpeted area and onto the tile, the bottom of the bag dropped out and a third of the remaining ice fell out onto the tiles. So I grab the bottom of the bag and flip it over (the top was still closed). But then the top of the bag gave way releasing another third of the bag between all of the bunks. The remaining third of ice I put into the back cooler. I then spent the next 15 minutes collecting ice off the floor of Third Day's bus. And the next 15 minutes cleaning the other pile of ice and wiping the floor by hand with paper towels.

Baby
On the bright side of things Elizabeth came to the show and spent some time backstage with me and my peoples. We got to sit down and have dinner together. And while having dinner, she and Christina (from our small group) got to meet the guys from Jars of Clay. It was so nice to be able to sit and enjoy a meal for once.

Ahoy Matey!

Arggggg! Today be talk like a pirate day. We all be speaking like the seaferin' swabbies our ancestors once were. Aye, it be a booty full of fun!
*Squak! Booty full of fun! Squak!*
Me parrot likes to speak smartly too! He don't like the landlubber speak.

That was the fun for the day. Hope tomorrow goes well - it's gonna be a busy day. Atlanta is our busiest show!

Pa-rum-pum-pum-puum...

Story of the day:

One of the guys on our tour entered the office around 7:30pm (The show was already well under way and Robert Randolph was rocking the stage). He begins to tell us of an unhappy man in the audience. The man stated that he cannot see the stage while sitting down because everyone in front of him is standing up. He complain to this guy for several minutes because our guy is wearing a laminate which means he obviously works there at the venue and can do something about this atrocity. Our guy keeps apologizing while the unhappy audience member keeps telling him how horrible the situation is. The man's daughter finally interrupts her father to let him know that he is not talking to an usher at all, but to David Carr, the drummer for Third Day. The man stops dead sentence, and begins to apologize to David.

Chattanooga Rock City!

I took a little pit stop on the way to Nashville. I swung into Rock City Georgia and did a little tourisming. Here are some pics:





Now the creepy part! Whoever thought this was a good idea for a grand finale is twisted. I literally got scared half-way through this cave of fairytales for children. They were playing songs sung by children's choirs while you look at all of these fairy tale characters including wolves, dwarfs, mice being chased by a woman shaking a farmer's knife at three blind mice - all under blacklight. And the sign at the entrance says, "no smoking". How ironic, cuz I think that's what the artist was doing when she built this creep show. BTW - I am afraid of dolls, so the tiny little miscolored people and animals didn't help.

Mission: Possible...hopefully...

We are about to start the hardest part of the tour. This week we are in the south going from Birmingham to NC (which we lose about 4 hours of set-up time because of the drive and the time change) then to ATL (home of Third Day and our Sponsors) and then to Nashville (where everyone else will be). Then the following week is in CA which is Switchfoot's stomping grounds. Busy Busy Busy!

Also on the tour several of the radio stations have been giving away "jam with the band" passes. Which gives you a chance to play on stage with the bands during the encore. The first guy played some pots and pans. The second guy got a cowbell. The third guy could not figure out why we would not let him play David Carr's drum set during the song, and the fourth guy, which played on Sunday, played the PVC pipes. I was hoping he would dye himself blue too, but the mohawk was just as cool!

Also during the tour, we have all been blessed by the video on youtube of Sonseed! I am not sure about you, but I have always wondered what it would be like if Jesus was a Canadian Mountee - this video answers that question!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-NOZU2iPA8

I Now Have Two Legs!

Today is the end of the second leg of the tour and things have gone fairly smoothly. Not perfect, but I have caught on enough to be able to do what I need to do before being asked and can anticipate things going wrong and fix them because I have a clue of what things are supposed to be like. I also received a few non-direct compliments today so I am grateful of that. We are also having either calzones or stromboli tonight - either one will be VERY good!! I also get to come home tomorrow, so I am also excited about that.
Elizabeth - I'm comin' home! (Redd Foxx)

White Power!!!

I finally saw Jars of Clay perform a song! Here is a pic of them all in white. They dress this way for every show...

For Jackie!!

We watched a TV show last night called the 723lb woman. It was a bout a woman who broke her ankle, which caused her to gain 600 lbs (the short version of the story). She underwent stomach stapling and lost about 300lbs. It was good for her, but while we were watching the surgery, Jenn was getting a little disturbed by the images and so I offered her a meatball Hot Pocket. She refused. We all laughed. There have been several comments on Jackie since then. There is also a T-shirt we saw while watching TV that said "I have no idea what your talking about", I am thinking about getting one.
I have worn Joe shirts the entire tour without repeating a shirt yet. Nobody has noticed the reference. Bummer...

Prank of the day: The hazer set in Switchfoot's dressing room. The hazer is the fog machine. The stage crew set off the fire alarm and had to find fans to air it all out of the room before the firemen showed up.

my head hurts...

I write this with a headache, so if it sound like I am moaning between words - I may very well be moaning. I think it's a sinus headache and took some stuff for it in hopes of relief. I even got to sleep in until 9:00 today. But we didn't even get to the venue until 11:00am. with 3 less hours than normal, we still got everything we needed to get done completed on time other than hanging schedules for the day which was only mid-afternoon when we got them all up. (moan) We also listened to 80's today. I love me some 80's music! Duran Duran, Bangles, Wang Chung...and the beat goes on...

Like the first day of school...for the second time this year...on the Third Day tour...on our fourth show...

Today was fun. At least this morning was funny. Jenn tells me last night we are going to wake up before everyone and get all the directional signs hung up before anyone awakes. So I set my alarm for 6:45am (usually we start at 8:00am) and I get up and ready and off the bus by 7:00am. Then I get a text from Jenn stating our plans were "foiled again!" I was confused because as I look around nobody is moving within site of me. Then I realize she was talking about me, but by this time signs are already being hung by yours truly! She told me later she kept creeping around saying "Joe, Joe" looking for me to get up and start moving (it is dark in the sleeping area of the bus). I was already half done by the time I saw Jenn departing from the bus after trying to track me down.
Third Day also had to make interview calls to Australia today. We used phone cards and trying to use a phone card is a bit more difficult than you would think if you are calling internationally. It took me 30 minutes to finally get a phone to ring in Australia! And Outback doesn't even open there until 5pm! Last time I call for take-out.
Jenn and Joe vs. The World results:
The World only scored on us 3 times. So we stayed on top of everything but 3 things. Not bad for a day full of a thousand things to do and a thousand other things that could go wrong.

On The Road Again...

I am presently at Taco Bell in Nashville awaiting the bus. I got a ten pack of soft shells - I am hoping to finish them all off myself for a new self-record. I am excited to get going again. I am confident that the next couple months hold a lot more in store than just making concerts happen. I am not sure beyond that, but it is all in God's hands. I just hope I'm staying within the fingers...
I also made my first investment this week that was by my own choice. I have put some money into a new record that some friends of mine have recorded. I know they will do well cuz they just plain rock! Their name is "The Media Says" you can check them out on myspace.com/themediasays lots of good music posted there.
Time to get back to tacos...

UPDATE - only 8

All is "FAIR"

More pictures for the fair...

Lil' Anna
Salamander

I just liked this one, but it didn't make the cut...

Two Weeks Noticed

It has been a wonderful two weeks off. Elizabeth has been working as hard as humanly possible and loving every minute of it. Chelsea had mono and got good news from Oglethorpe. And I have been working on the house and my art for the fair (posted at the end of this entry). I still have a few pictures to work out, and I may work on a few more pieces...I haven't decided yet if I want to start something new. We'll see...