way back and the waybacks

So Dean recently developed an ancient roll of film and found some funny photos. I realized I had a couple of disposable cameras in my desk from who knows how long ago. This was pre digital camera ownership.
Mee-shell, Victor Fangor, Hate All
It took a young lady from New Zealand to convince us to clean out the bottom garage at the Fuller house and turn it into bedrooms. This was either a great idea or a horrible idea. It really extended all our stay at that house.
Young Dean and Sjionel from the Coolies
Pre-Flore restaurant  Miranda had Tierra cafe downtown and she put on these epic Vegan brunches. 
Remember Staring Problem
Mr. Ryan Jacob Smith
BARR w/ cane
Most of the photos on the cameras looked like this one. 
Rando and Lil Nate. Lets just say at this time we were not the best of friends. There was something about bean dip and glasses as well as a "Skeleton shaking his moldy bones" tape flying out the window. That seems like forever ago.
There is a funny article in Black Book this month.
Dean being Out of Step

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RANDY RANDALL

Pisces style!

from Tara Tavi (Amps For Christ)

Howdy! Please help, things are getting out of control!

Last Thursday, my school district sent out layoff notices to 643 teachers. They plan to increase class sizes. This is how they will layoff so many teachers. They sent notices to teachers with 12 or less years with the district. This is going to continue in all school districts. And this will affect all California school children's educations and thousands of teachers like myself who will lose their jobs and their livelihood. This comes at a time when it appears that finding a job anywhere else is going to be close to impossible. I have fellow teacher friends who are terrified of what losing their job will mean to their lives and their family. If you can send an email to the governor and to your Legislators it will help us and it will help thousands of others who are in the same sad situation. Thank you for helping me. Thank you so very much............

Click on this link: http://www.legislature.ca.gov/legislators_and_districts/legislators_and_districts.html.
you will be able to access the legislators that serve your area through this link. Go to "Find Your District" and then "Search by Zip-Code".

Type to Legislators:

Please do not support continued cuts to the education budget. Please lobby the governor to use the federal stimulus money, which has been allocated for schools only for the education budget. Please do not hold back even more education money for other state use. Also, please lobby to permit and mandate school districts to use categorical funding for ONLY for class-size reduction, which helps students and also saves countless teacher's jobs.


Also, please send an email to the Governor: http://gov.ca.gov/
Type to Governor:
Please do not continue to support drastic and devastating cuts to education. School districts are sending layoff notices to hundreds of teachers and they plan to meet the budget deficit by increasing class sizes. This will make it extremely difficult for students to receive a solid education in the State of California. Please use all federal stimulus money allocated for the education budget and not remove even more education money for other state use. Also, please permit and mandate that school districts use their categorical funding for retaining class-size reduction, which helps students and also saves countless teacher's jobs

mystery roll developed

Found a roll of film tucked away under the dresser, it is from when we toured with the Liars back in February, so that is exactly a year ago. Jen is staring at the elevator buttons, someone made them look prettier.
This is funny, i believe it is in Texas. I wanted to eat there i remember but Randy loves Pei Wei, so we went there. Pei Wei isn't too bad, they have the blazing noodles with tofu and veggies. God, what a weird name for a place.
Here we are in a graveyard, it is pretty dark and spooky. It was somewhere in the south. I gave Jordan the camera and he went to town, i remember it being really cold. We are goth now.
I don't know who took this, either Randy, Jordan or i set it on auto. That guy on TV seems like an OK fellow though for sure.
Randy writing his name in the snow, Tagger at heart.
This is Randy walking to pee wearing his sweet Brother Reade hoodie. He has something hanging out of his pocket, looks like a hankie, so maybe he went number 2... ahh, life on tour.
Jordan asleep in the tour van. The Dodge "Grand" Caravan. You gotta get the grand because it has an extra 11" of space in the back, which is vital to fit our gear and all that. But if you notice, this is how Jordan had to sit all the time, With a box of records on his lap and bags of shit on both sides, that is why he is the best roadie, he never complained once!

more random aussie pics

Like, what the hell can this place be? that is a funny name though. I had to explain to an australian friend that this would be funny in the states, he didn't get it.
This was on the door of the place we played in Wellington, NZ. I can't explain this one either. 
Jay's new tattoo. Some kids came and offered up free tat's and they all jumped on the offer. billy got a tattoo of his dog, but the double flying V's are a good edition to the Einstein above.
This is Steven throwing a ball at Randy while he was in the dunk tank, I am pretty sure he missed. 
Cool kids from Brisbane.
Me and Steven. 
Found this near the trash, was hoping there was another brand called MIKA, but no dice. The images on the can are funny, I think they are sea vegetables, don't know why you would fry sea veggies, but that's cool.
My art. I opened up a store out there, got pretty into the area, I hired a kangaroo as the manager.
An Australian add. Sexy gummo was on the side of a huge building.

They have plain Dorito's out there, they also have it in England. I was telling someone that it was so crazy, and they asked what flavors we had, i said "nacho cheese and cool ranch" and they were like "what is that" and i said "you know, cool ranch... like ranch dressing" and they said "huh, i don't know" and i had no idea how to explain ranch... i mean what is it really? 
Black Flag down under.
Some pictures from a radio station wall.
Dave Benge. He was looking after most of our australian dates and making sure we had things like water and hummus... what a great guy. 
This photo reminds me of "Staring into the sun", a bad record from Uniform Choice, but still worth hearing if you are a fan, you will hate it though. If you are 13 and just getting into them you will try really hard to like it and even pretend and fool yourself. One day you will just give up and be like "this record sucks". Just like "Fire and Ice" by DYS, it just isn't good.

Apollo-geeze

I want to official say sorry to the good folks at FBI. They do a hard days work and don't deserve to get crapped on by us. I was totally bummed on how weird and misunderstood the interview was we did at FBI. I was hurt by the over sight of the DJ by being called by different names and having to defend myself and our songs live on the air. In an impulsive moment backstage in Wellington, NZ I wrote a really messed up post about what I felt happened during the interview. I mistakenly thought The DJ at FBI was intentionally trying to be offensive to us and he should be able to take criticism back. I went too far and made a poor error in judgement. I really honestly forget that anyone other than the friends I have at home read this blog. I really want to reach out to all the people at FBI and their fans who may have been offended by my petty knee JERK reaction. I hope you will please accept my sincerest apology.

We had such and awesome time in Australia and New Zealand, I would hate for this to be a blemish on an otherwise incredible, inspiration, and overall beautiful tour.

I am sorry. I welcome all criticism and comments.  

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Randy 

METALLICA WON THE GRAMMY, we are still in australia!

We ran into Ryan Adams at the skatepark in Wellington New Zealand, he was shredding the old school board. Randy was telling a good story about a genie and a 12 inch pianist.
Some cool kids from our warehouse party after Laneway. It was an awesome show, total punk and party style. Thanks to all the kids who help set it up!
Coolest style ever! This shirt is an old flyer from a show that happened at the Ukrainian Culture Center in LA. Legendery!!
My view from the party, all i could see was sweaty australian youngsters.
Sweet fans at the Laneway fest in sydney! It was real windy, like a lenny kravitz music video.
This was at the airport, i snuck a pic. They seemed real excited about something, not sure what though.
This kid was cool. looks kinda like dustin from total abuse / best fwends, which reminds me when we were in WIVES roy the drummer was doing a zine of people who look like dustin, but i don't think he finished... you can add this one roy, if you like.
Some festival footage.
Maoz in Perth. Maoz has been one of our saving Grace's on tour, wherever they exist you can usually find us eating. Great falafel.
Townes mel and chris. Townes is so cute. Mel and Chris were in the awesome band Shoplifting, now they are parenting it up in melbourne, they rule!
Randy and his long lost cousin, chubby brass man. Look at the bulge on that guy.
Chinese new year. We played during it in melbourne and this guy is putting cabbage on some  fireworks, i have no idea why... but it seems pretty cool.
Steven in the dunk tank, he borrowed this bikini from someone at the show i think, i hope she didn't get it back.
Randy in the tank, he got dunked about 10 times, 4 of them were by this one guy, i didn't get a pic of him though, he looked like Malcolm from Malcolm in the Middle.
Funny security guard. During Jay's set he was freaking out and grabbing kids, but i got a good shot of him, nice smile too.
Jay shreds with no eyes!
This is where they had all the tennis matches! We drove by real quick.
Randy and Dustin in Melbourne.
Aussie cops are real nice.