As local indie rocker Michael Zapruder and his band tour around the country promoting their upcoming record Dragon Chinese Cocktail Horoscope, he’ll be blogging from the road via The Bay Bridged. Enjoy!

Monday 11.3.08 – Day 20.

In a rainy pub in Pittsburgh on a Sunday night as the Steelers collapse in the fourth quarter. Everyone is wearing bright yellow and black jerseys, the waitress has a Steelers hat on. The darkness and the cold drizzle outside are smearing their fingers on the windows behind us, seeping into everything, even the beer and bacon cheeseburgers.

In our friend Paul’s place, surrounded by old broken jukeboxes and radios and a full-size shuffleboard table, hearing about his girlfriend in South America studying anthropology and micro-lending, while he’s home collecting very large antiques like old phone booths and small novelties like v-neck ukeleles. He’s doing the day job thing and hosting bands whenever he can. A life that’s both familiar and unimaginable.

At a cocktail bar in Chicago’s Wicker Park after a four-day tear from California through Nevada, Utah, Colorado and Kansas. We have become in that short time parts of the wide open landscape, like tumbleweeds or starlings or like the immensely tall Circle K signs you can see from miles away on I-70 in the West. Then we drink drinks with raw egg whites in them, strained bok choi, bitters, and feel like yokels from a space program based in Post Rock County Kansas.

He’s shitfaced, calls himself Triple G, really wants us to crash with him at his place above the Jesus figurine store. He weaves over, asks me to come outside with him, begins to look ornery when I balk. He glares at us from across the bar all night, his face is like a moon in a rear view mirror. Later, we’re loading the van and he’s blasting music from his upstairs window. Old school hip hop. Strange messages. Let’s go.

60,000 cows and 100 steel mills. Windmills, cell phone towers, electrical power stations, huge American flags, silos, canyons, skyscrapers, owls, hawks, eagles, deer, crows, ravens, cats, dogs, llamas, and a giant iguana-shaped funhouse.

That’s the tip of the iceberg. We’re not sure what role these impressions will play in our future, but we’ll keep our eyes on that. We’re in the desert now, crossing New Mexico. Looking forward to getting back to CA for the release show (Wednesday at Bottom of the Hill with 1090 Club (Montana) and The R&B Freejazz Gospel Supreme 80. 9pm, $8.) Please come welcome us home.

mz