I rarely ever get the fuck out of the city. I rarely get out of my day to day 5 mile radius. People say, "C'mon! Let's go on a road trip!" I typically respond, "Uh, I have a lot of work to do! I have no money!" Usually people want to drag me down to New Orleans. I am not opposed to this idea, but the South scares the hell out of me. The furthest south I have been is St. Louis, shithole.

I like to go on roadtrips, the best part being in the car. Once I'm in a new spot, well, I'm just a tourist…I need more than a week or whatever to actually let the place soak in.

I once didn't leave the city for 3 years. It was an endurance test. Finally someone dragged me out to a rest stop in Nowhere, Ill. She was shooting a video and had me wear a dress and stand in the middle of a field while thick neck truckers pulled in. I was scared I was going to get my ass kicked.

Eh, I have to go see my mother every once in a while. Her name is Cookie and she lives in New Jersey. I can't stand the 17 hour greyhound trip from Chicago and I am deathly afraid to fly, trains are too expensive. The Fall were playing in New York last year, so I used that as an excuse to visit Cookie.

Road trips taken:

NJ to Vermont/New Hampshire via car
IL to House on Rock via car
IL to Mississippi River ( this is the furthest west I have been) via VW bus
Mini-tour: IL to St. Louis, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Bloomington, Terra Haut via big suburban van

Terra Haut story:
I was in this shitty band and we agreed to go on tour with this little twit and his even shittier band. This tour was terrible, the silliest show being in Terra Haut. Where the fuck Terra Haut is I DON'T KNOW! Indiana somewhere. So…it took place in some kid's basement. 2 of his friends show up. The whole house smelled of cat piss. We had fun though, not caring. Afterwards, we were sitting upstairs yakking. E---- picked up a book from the large packrat stacks around the house "IDIOT'S GUIDE TO DATING". We were bored & started to do the surveys, which attracted the attention of the kid who put on the show. He was an unattractive dumpy fellow with a fatty girlfriend. He started to offer up information on how he and his girlfriend love to have group sex. He didn't reveal this in a bravado way, but in a way to invite us to join in. There was enough sexual tension in the band, we didn't need to make it worse by making out with this troll. The kid soon veered his conversation into his near death life altering experiences, until we were all nodding off, completely bored.

- gregory