A blog about POG

A little blog about POG

When we last met, I was comfortably relaxing in a hotel in Tempe where the temperatures reached a “mild” 110. I am now comfortably relaxing in another hotel, but this one’s in Anaheim, which may lead you to believe that my work is all sitting around in a double bed with white sheets while watching whatever terrible movie is on HBO.

If only.

But to be fair, the momentous amounts of work that go into this job are all ones that are directly suited to my personality. My superhuman organizational skills have faired very well thus far into the tour (although we are only a few shows in), and I have managed every situation save one very well. That one instance involved my lack of patience with the front desk of the very hotel from which I am writing to you all.

Onto the stories.

The venue in Tempe was a step up from the tiny bar and grill we got stuck playing at in Albuquerque. It was a fairly standard grungy and dirty club with a grungy and dirty green room with grungy and dirty couches. After having a meeting and raiding the hospitality, the band took off for dinner, and I resumed my faithful place behind the merch table, and who doesn’t walk up but Roommate herself, Leia. (Kidding, I had put her on the guest list).

Leia and I spent the better part of two opening acts catching up with each other and spreading some gossip about college classmates and what not. I am so glad that I got to see her, and in talking to Leia I realized something so great about being on tour. As a rather social person, I tend to have many different groups of friends from high school, college, running, music, and everything else I do. And these people—while centered in Denver—have spread themselves around the country. While on tour, I get a single serving of time spent with these loved ones, and while not quite satisfying, it’s more direct contact than I would normally get.

All in all the show went well, and we sold more merch than I could imagine we would. That leads to a whole other discussion about the trials of life on the road. (Merch is rapidly becoming the bane of my existence). The only problem we had was with security since two security guards watching the stage watched someone from the audience steal Stephen’s hat off the stage. I finagled an amenable return from the venue, and all was okey dokey.

After the show we showered, ate, and then hopped onto Sergo and putted our way into Southern California. Yesterday we got food at CoCo’s across the street from the hotel and experienced the worst service in the history of the restaurant industry. Following an afternoon of work, Jamie, Mackenzie, and I drove off in the Nitro (our rental car) to have dinner with Sarah, a producer on the “Rise” video. We ate at Magnolia then got Pinkberry—the be all and end all of frozen yogurt hands down.



Afterwards we walked to the Dresden Room (famous for its appearance in the movie Swingers) for a taste of famed lounge act Marty & Elaine. However, Jamie forgot his license and credit cards in Denver and the security guy would not let him in—even though Jamie exceeds the legal age for entry by almost a decade.

We ended up sneaking in the back, but while having a drink, Jamie had to duck into a bathroom stall when the security guy spotted him. For such a small dive bar, they had quite the sting operation going on. We ended up leaving fairly early and driving back to the hotel.

This morning at breakfast, I realized that this hotel made up for the poor service at the front desk. While scanning the choices of juice varieties in the buffet, I noticed they wanted to make me feel at home in Southern California. There it was. Right in between orange and apple sat POG. Passion-orange-guava to be more specific. After four years at the caf and hundreds upon hundreds of glasses of this magical juice, I have had juice withdrawals of the worst kind over the last year. And you thought quitting drugs was hard.

I filled my goblet (water goblet) with POG and blissfully enjoyed the rest of my meal. Until I meet you again POG, I will always remember you fondly.