live via: oakland...i mean sacramento...i mean LA...i mean atlanta...i mean auburn...i mean birmingham...i mean atlanta again.

i mean chicago.

you know you're sick when your phlegm is the colors of the jamaican flag. i had the good fortune of getting ridiculously sick immediately after quitting my job...thus capturing my first couple of weeks of "freedom" through coughing my brains out and drowning myself in tea, hot water, tea with lemon and honey, hot water with lemon and honey, theraflu, warm water with lemon and honey, airborne, emergen-c, ginseng, orange juice, lemonade, zinc tablets, and a zoo of hippie-ass herbal throat sprays. worst of all, i lost my voice for about a week and a half, which completely utterly depressed me for a good amount of time. there aren't many situations that are suckier than a spoken word artist losing his voice. that's like...a backpacker losing his arms. ok, maybe that's a little suckier.

but it really was horrible, seeing that i've never been so sick that i lost my voice, and for so long for that matter. spending the better part of april involuntarily sounding like cookie monster isn't the best way to celebrate spring. along with the plethora of liquids that i barraged my sore throat with, i also got into the habit of daily voice exercises that probably further damaged my voice, but being in an utter state of panic that i might have lost my pipes for good, i had to run tests for my own peace of mind. the most effective of my voice improvement measurements has been occurring every morning for the past week, with me trying to sing the hook to el debarge's "i like it" right when i wake up. i must say that i'm pretty proud of myself, by sunday i was able to get the "ooooh" down, and today my voice is pretty much back in the building and feeling itself, as i'm able to hit the "you send chills up my spine" part.

those of you who aren't into great 90's music have no idea what i'm talking about.



seeing that i've actually NEVER been as sick as i was, EVER, it's hard for me to measure whether my actions throughout the past week prolonged my sickness, or helped me heal from what could've possibly been a diabolical deathly virus. i'm going to go with the assumption that i was HELLA SMART and healed myself with a genius fit for a master shaman. so here we go: memoirs of a deja: adriel's adventures in a week of getting better (i know the deja thing makes no sense but i was sitting on this plane looking for some kind of clever wordplay that rhymed with "geishia" and had something to do either with me being sick or at least chinese and it just wasn't coming to me. i tried. i swear.)

last thursday, seeing that i was finally coughing monochromatic luggies again, i figured that i was healthy enough to drive to davis and get plastered with dahlak at the campus pub. it's a very hypocritical move to turn down nachos because "i shouldn't eat dairy...it's bad for my throat" and then proceed to down half a pitcher and get blazed to jonathan glazer videos.



but when i woke up on friday and not only had no hangover, but also was able to speak without sounding like winnie the pooh, i did the only thing you can do in a situation like that: i hopped in my car and drove myself to los angeles. for no reason whatsoever besides the fact that the ridiculously cool olivia happened to be in the state. my logic was, if i drove the entire 7 hours without air conditioning, the hot humidity of my recycled breathing in my car would clear my throat a bit. when i got there, somewhere between eating a quarter tray of lasagna and...um...going to disneyland....i realized i wasn't exactly following the footsteps of dr. mcdreamy.



see, all this, along with stopping at an indian restaurant in the middle of the boondocks on my way back from LA and munching on deep fried samosas, probably should've ruined my throat for life. but hey, kids, it worked for me!



so i got back from my roadtrip on sunday and pretty much had enough time to take a piss and pack before heading over with ill-lit to our auburn show.

the following is a short play written and directed by the experience of adriel's plane ride to atlanta.

OPEN SCENE

ADRIEL: Excuse me, I need to use the restroom.

FLIGHT ATTENDANT: No, sir. We've just taken off. The seatbelt lights are still on.

ADRIEL: I just need to go real quick.

FLIGHT ATTENDANT: Sir, sit down.

ADRIEL: No. The blanket you gave me had a booger on it. I need to wash my hands right now.

FLIGHT ATTENDANT: ...go ahead.

CLOSE SCENE

we arrived in atlanta on yesterday at 5:40am (2:40am in my body...hey, that's the time that i usually blog! hay hay hay!) and knocked out in the car as the great stephen bor drove us to auburn, alabama.



it's very humbling to return to a show venue a year later. to recognize people in the audience from the other side of the country who saw you last year is a real trip. stephen and hanalei rocked my freakin socks, and i'm sure i'll have plenty more awkward-looking facial expressions to show you when i get the pictures from the ill-lit set.

so here i am. on a plane to chicago. i was originally supposed to go home, but a last minute confirmation for our pittsburgh show on friday calls for me to round out my trip! so instead of going back to the bay, i'm toooooootally taking advantage of my layover in chicago and just lamping in the windy city until i fly to pitt! HOW GANGSTER IS THAT??

that's the thought i had in my head earlier this morning, until i got a message on the way to the airport telling me that my flight was cancelled. DUN DUN DUNNNNNNN.

we interrupt this boring to-do-list-style blog entry with a still boring but at least a bit more descriptive narrative of adriel's adventure in airports of the deep south. (hey, it's a 2-hour flight. i have a lot of time)

the birmingham airport is not the biggest airport in the world. driving there, there's a sign that says "terminal." that's pretty much the gist of it. american airlines' flights aren't even listed on a screen. when i arrived, the list of the five or so flights going out for the day were written on a bulletin board, and (yay!) the flight to chicago was covered with an index card with the word "cancelled" sloppily written on. the old lady at the counter, however, was so sweet, so incredibly southern, i thought marmalade was going to squirt from her ears. when the option of staying in birmingham for a day was presented, i was reminded of my friend prentice and his facial expression last week when i told him i would be roaming that town. "when i asked for advice on a good place to eat," he recalled, "i was advised to stay within the people don't get lynched here area."

yeah. i wasn't trying to stay a second longer than i had to. luckily the sweet old lady found me a flight detouring back to atlanta and then heading to chi city. upon arriving at the security checkpoint, the woman mediating the line took one look at me and hollered out to the TSA guards, "i've got another random check for you!"

standing with my shoes off and legs spread with a 300-something-pound mountain of a man in a uniform feeling on my boo-hooty is not my idea of southern hospitality. but i suppose some people find it endearing to have a conversation with a TSA officer about his manic obsession with sims 2 and rollercoaster tycoon while he rubs swabs all over your life's possessions to make sure they're not ridden with anthrax. the flight to atlanta was quick enough, a nice little break before my 5 HOUR LAYOVER.

so now i'm headed to chicago, my flight was delayed because it's 30 degrees and SNOWING, and my california ass packed fucking SHORTS. gonna have to find me some house music to sweat to.